Reading a story about the homeland for preschoolers. Evgeniy Permyak
Current page: 1 (book has 2 pages in total) [available reading passage: 1 pages]
Compiled by S. F. Dmitrenko
Motherland. Works of Russian writers about the Motherland
For parents, teachers and curious students
This book does not replace, but significantly complements traditional anthologies and collections of literary reading. That's why you won't find many here famous works, constantly reprinted and included in these books. Fortunately, Russian literature is inexhaustibly rich, and you can expand your reading circle endlessly, if only you have a passion.
This small book presents picturesque pictures of our homeland - from Kyiv, the cradle of East Slavic civilization, to Pacific Ocean, from the White Sea to the Caucasus. In fact, you get an amazing opportunity to take an exciting journey back in time and see many of the regions and places of our homeland as they were about a century and a half ago. Your reliable guides will be Russian writers and poets - true talents, masters of words.
In the era of the universal spread of the Internet and the ease of obtaining any help and explanation through it, we decided to do without systematic comments on texts and detailed biographical information about writers. Some readers may need them, others may not, but in any case, every student gets an excellent opportunity to make sure that an independent search for interpretations unclear words and expressions on the Internet is no less exciting than the famous “shooting games” and similar attractions.
For obvious reasons, we are forced to give almost all prose works in small passages, however fascinating, so I would like to hope that schoolchildren will have the opportunity to read them in full, and the work of the outstanding Russian writer and ethnographer, author of the famous dictionary book “ Winged words"Sergei Vasilyevich Maksimov (1831–1901) will become a joyful discovery and reading for a lifetime for them!
Ivan Nikitin
Rus
Under the big tent
Blue skies -
I see the distance of the steppes
Turns green.And on their edges,
Above the dark clouds
The chains of mountains stand
Giants.Across the steppes to the seas
The rivers are rolling
And there are paths
In all directions.I'll look south -
Mature fields,
That the reeds are thick,
They move quietly;Ant of meadows
It spreads like a carpet,
Grapes in the gardens
It's pouring.I'll look north -
There, in the wilderness of the desert,
Snow is like white fluff,
Spins quickly;Raises the chest
The sea is blue,
And mountains of ice
Walks on the sea;And the sky is on fire
Bright glow
Lights up the darkness
Impenetrable...It's you, my
Sovereign Rus',
My motherland
Orthodox!Wide are you, Rus',
Across the face of the earth
In royal beauty
Turned around!Don't you have
Pure fields
Where would I find revelry?
Is the will bold?Don't you have
About the treasury reserves,
For friends - a table,
A sword to an enemy?Don't you have
Bogatyr forces,
Saint of old,
Loud feats?Before whom?
Have you humiliated?
To whom on a rainy day
Did you bow low?In their fields,
Under the mounds
You put it
Tatar hordes.You are life and death
Had a dispute with Lithuania
And gave a lesson
Lyakh proud.And how long ago was it,
When from the West
I hugged you
Is the cloud dark?Under her thunderstorm
The forests fell
The mother of cheese is the earth
I hesitatedAnd ominous smoke
From the burning villages
stood up high
Black cloud!But the king just called
Your people to battle -
Suddenly from all over
Rus' has risen.Gathered the children
Old men and wives,
Received guests
To a bloody feast.And in the remote steppes,
Under the snowdrifts
We went to bed
Guests forever.They buried them
Snowy blizzards,
Storms of the North
They cried for them!..And now among
of your cities
Swarming with ants
Orthodox people.Across gray seas
From distant countries
To bow to you
The ships are coming.And the fields are blooming,
And the forests are noisy,
And they lie in the ground
Piles of gold.And in all directions
White light
it's about you
The glory is loud.There's a reason for it,
Mighty Rus',
To love you
Call me motherStand for your honor
Against the enemy
For you in need
Lay down your head!
Vladimir Benediktov
Moscow
Close... My heart skipped a beat;
Closer... closer... You can see it!
Now it has opened up, turned around, -
Temples shine: here she is!
Even an old woman, even a gray-haired one,
And all fiery,
Radiant, holy,
Golden-headed, dear
White stone!
Here she is! - how long has it been since you left the ashes?
And look: what it is!
Got up, grew, got stronger,
And still alive!
And by that cruel fire
Sweetly stirring the memory,
Curls with a wide belt
Around the high Kremlin.
And calm, majestic,
The cheerful guardian of Russian glory -
The Kremlin is both red and great,
Where, only God's hour arose,
Crowned with a bright dome
John's Bell Tower
Moves his copper tongue;
Where are the church crosses far away?
By air steps
They are coming, in gold, towards
To the bright, divine skies;
Where beyond the boundaries of the stronghold,
Behind the shield of a steep wall,
The sacraments of the shrine are alive
And a shrine of antiquity.
The ancient city, the stubborn city,
A city surrounded by beauty
Church city, cathedral city
Both sovereign and holy!
He has a cheerful Russian disposition,
Heavy harmony regulations
Rebellious, lay down freely
And he spread out as best he could.
Obedient to old habits,
He has a welcoming smile
Through the opening of your gates
He calls everyone into his arms.
He lived a lot in the world.
Remembers the times of our ancestors,
And greet him live
Rus' is visible wide open.Rus'... Brilliant in orderly order
Petropol is her head,
You are her zealous heart,
Orthodox Moscow!
Decorous, strict, thoughtful
He, the harsh city of Peter,
Full of reasonable care
And by acquiring goodness.
Child of cold midnight -
He proudly entered the sea:
He has Russian eyes,
And her fate is the language.
And she is native Moscow -
It lay in the chest of Russia,
Deepened, centuries-old.
She locked it in the depths of the treasure.
And boiling with Russian blood
And mighty love
Hot for royal glory,
The giants are crowned
And it rings and triumphs;
But when she is threatened
The forces of the enemy pressure,
She composes for herself
Glorious sacrificial pyre
And, seeing the enemies' banner,
Close to the ancient wall,
Plunges into flames
And flaunts on fire!
I waited for a long time... my chest is filled with longing -
The Duma is now the head;
Finally you are in front of me,
Beloved Moscow!
The spirit is disturbed by you,
The gaze is drawn to your beauty.
Chu! They're calling you back!Hasty greetings
Here's my voice: many summers
And be alive and well!
May your peals be preserved
Traces of Russian valor!
May your chambers shine!
Let your gardens bloom!
And dressed with grace
And love and silence
And marked with a seal
Unforgettable antiquity,
Without a stain, without reproach,
Under the influence of miracles,
Be the glory of the fatherland,
Be the joy of heaven.
Beginning 1838
Alexey Khomyakov
Kyiv
High in front of me
Old Kyiv over the Dnieper,
The Dnieper sparkles under the mountain
Iridescent silver.Glory, eternal Kyiv,
The cradle of Russian glory!
Glory, our fleeting Dnieper,
Rus' is a pure font!Sweet songs rang out,
There is a quiet evening ringing in the sky:
“Where are you coming from?
Dear pilgrims, take a bow?”- “I am from where it flows
The Quiet Don is the beauty of the steppes.”
- “I’m from where it swirls
The boundless Yenisei!- “My land is the warm shore of Euxinus!”
- “My land is the shore of those distant countries,
Where is one solid ice floe
Encased the ocean."
- “I am from Mother Moscow.”- “The top of Altai is wild and scary,
The shine of its snows is eternal,
That’s my native country!”
- “My homeland is old Pskov.”- “I am from cold Ladoga.”
- “I am from the blue waves of the Neva.”
- “I am from the Kama, full of water.”
- “I am from Mother Moscow.”Glory, Dnieper, gray waves!
Glory, Kyiv, wonderful city!
The darkness of your caves is silent
More beautiful than royal chambers.We know, in centuries past,
In the ancient night and deep darkness,
Russia flashed above you
The sun of the eternal east.And now from distant lands,
From the unknown steppes,
From deep midnight rivers -
A regiment of praying children -We are around our shrine
All collected with love...
Brothers, where are the sons of Volyn?
Galich, where are your sons?Woe, woe! they were burned
Poland wild fires;
They were lured, they were captured
Poland noisy feasts.Sword and flattery, deceit and flame
They were stolen from us;
They are led by someone else's banner,
They are ruled by an alien voice.Wake up, Kyiv, again!
Call your fallen children!
Sweet is the voice of a dear father,
A call of prayer and love.And rejected children
Only they will hear your call,
Having broken the treachery of the network,
Forgetting the alien banner,Again, as in time,
They'll come to calm down
To your holy bosom,
To your parents' shelter.And around the banners of the fatherland
They will flow in a crowd,
To the life of the spirit, to the spirit of life,
Revived by you!
<Ноябрь 1839>
Peter Vyazemsky
Steppe
Endless Russia
Like an eternity on earth!
You go, you go, you go, you go,
Days and miles don’t matter!
Time and space are drowning
In your vastness.The steppe is wide open
It lies across and along,
Like a sea of fire
The heat is burning and scorching.The compressed air becomes numb,
Doesn't smell good on a hot day
A winged breeze from the sky,
Not a cool cloud shadow.Heaven is like a copper dome,
They got hot. The steppe is bare;
Somewhere in front of the poor man's hut
The poor willow is drying up.Long-legged stork from the roof
Looks like a faithful homebody;
Good friend of the family, poor,
He keeps her from harm.Step by step, with calm importance
Oxen drag heavy loads;
Dust blows like a sultry blizzard,
A blizzard of fiery ash.Like broken tents
At the crossroads of the tribes -
Here are the mounds, here are the riddles
Unsolved times.Everything is empty, monotonous,
It’s as if the spirit froze;
Thought and feeling slumber idly,
The eyes and ears are hungry.Sad! But you are sad about this
Do not defame or slander:
From her my soul is warmed
Holy love glows.The steppes are bare, silent,
Still, both song and honor to you!
You are all Mother Russia,
Whatever it is!
Stepan Shevyrev
Oka
Many beautiful rivers flow
In the kingdom of Rus' young,
Blue, gold and clear,
Arguing with the sky with beauty.
But now simple praise
I’ll write about one river:
Blue, draft,
Polyhydrous Oka.
In the character of the Russian expanse
She bends:
Gives cities freedom
A slow wave.
Wonderful laziness pleases the eyes;
She poured out the water generously;
I threw away the lakes for nothing -
Like a mirror to the sky.
Preparing fish for fishermen,
Heavy ships are rushing;
Chain of gold trade
Knits Russian cities:
Murom and Nizhny have become brothers!
But it reached the Volga;
She modestly led the waves, -
And fell into her arms,
To bring it to the sea.
Polixena Solovyova
Petersburg
City of fogs and dreams
Stands before me
With an unclear bulk
heavy houses,
With a chain of palaces,
Reflected by the cold Neva.
Life wanders hastily
Here to the invisible goal...
I recognize you with the same longing,
The city is sick
Favorite unkind city!
You torment me like a dream
A timid question...
It’s night, but the dawn sky is flickering...
You're all defeated
White dusk.
Lukyan Yakubovich
Ural and Caucasus
The Ural and Caucasus mountains began to argue.
And the Urals said: “The world knows us!
I am rich in gold, rich in silver,
Diamond, and jasper, and all sorts of good things;
Many treasures have been extracted from my depths
And many treasures are still hidden in them!
I pay people a rich tax:
I cherish their lives, silver them, gild them!
Did the Caucasus get to be equal to me:
He is a beggar and hides robbery from the beggars!”
- Shut up, you despicable one! - exclaimed
Caucasus. -
I am a doctor, a true believer; the world knows us!
Wealth gives birth to diseases, vices,
Caucasian currents heal people;
I target the inhabitants of the valleys, the sick;
I love the mighty mountain inhabitants:
I renew health and life alone,
For others, I preserve their freedom and peace;
In ancient times I was the first to give shelter to Noah:
That’s why they know me, and love me, and honor me!
Sergey Maksimov
(From the book “A Year in the North”)
Trip to the Solovetsky Monastery
<…>A strong wind drove us forward quickly and strongly. The ship, tilted heavily to its side, fought off the side waves and cut the front ones boldly and straight. An island will float out and instantly begin to shrink, as if someone is pulling it back; another appears and moves back - a decisive pile of huge stones, thrown in a wonderful disorder one on top of the other, and after it a third island, covered with moss and spruce, appears to the eye. On this island roam deer, brought here from the Kem coast, from the city, for the whole summer. These deer lose their hair here, fleeing from gadflies, who torment them in other places until they are extremely exhausted. Here, according to the rowers, they manage to run wild throughout the summer to such an extent that they are difficult to handle. They then catch them by driving them into fences and throwing nooses on the horns, which even then have time to re-grow, knocked down by animals in the summer. Among the deer you can see more sheep, also Kem and also brought here from the shore for the summer.
We've been driving for more than two hours now. Directly opposite our karbas, in a clear, cloudless sky, a small light cloud floats out of the sea, vaguely outlined and presenting a rather strange, original appearance. This cloud, as we continued to leave the islands, turned into a simple White spot and yet – still stuck, as if nailed to the sky.
The rowers crossed themselves.
- Solovki are visible! - was their answer to my demand.
“It will be another thirty versts before them,” one remarked.
“It will be, it will certainly be,” answered the other.
– We must be there by ten o’clock in the evening! (We left Kemi at three o'clock in the afternoon.)
- And perhaps we will!..
- How could it not be, if the weather continues like this? Take hold of the oars, brothers, things will go sooner, we’ll get there sooner.
The rowers, apparently bored with sitting idle, willingly take up the oars, although the wind, noticeably subsiding, still lingers in the sails. The water is the most meek, that is, it is in that state when, with its ebb, it was able to adjust to a tailwind. The islands continue to shrink, the ship continues to rock, and noticeably more strongly as we approach the twenty-five-verst salma that separates the monastery from the last islands of the Body group. Finally we enter this salma. The wind is blowing stronger; the motion becomes stronger and interferes with writing and continuing notes. It carries us forward unusually quickly. The monastery appears as a solid white mass. The rowers throw down their oars so as not to tease the wind. The waves are still spinning and flying away with foam, no longer as frequent and small as those that accompanied us between the Bodies. To the left, far back, the Burnt Islands remained in the fog. On Golomyan, in the distance to the sea to the right, two sails are white, belonging, they say, to Murmansk shnyaks, carrying cod and halibut in fresh salts to Arkhangelsk...
A cloud came and sprinkled us with a brisk, heavy rain, forcing me to hide in the booth. The rain immediately stopped and ran like an impenetrable fog to the right, pulling the Zayatsky Islands, belonging to the Solovetsky group, from our eyes.
“The monasteries live there, a church was built, a monk lives next to the church, he is decrepit, the most frail: he looks after the cattle, he even had a dispute with the aglechki, he did not give them cattle. That’s where the goat lives that didn’t fall into the hands of his adversaries...
This is how the rowers explained it to me.
A platoon continues to roam the sea, which rocks our ship much more strongly than before. The wind died down; We're rowing. The sails dangle now in one direction, now in the other, the wind seems to want to set again, but which one is unknown. We waited for him for a long time and got nothing. The platoon settles down little by little, begins to rock the carbass less, and ripples with gentle and low waves. These waves sometimes hit the side of our carbass, roll it from one side to the other, and suddenly it seemed as if they started throwing stones, large stones, at the starboard side; the knocking began loudly. The rowers leaned harder on the oars, the waves spun one through the other in some vague, unnatural disorder. The sea for a considerable space ahead rippled with a wide strip, it became like fish scales, although in front and all around the water had long since settled down like a smooth mirror.
“We’re going with ours, we came to a place where both waters met: a high tide (high tide) with a low tide (low tide). Ingod, you won’t be able to master it, especially on steep ones, otherwise you’ll drown,” the rowers explained to me when these throwing waves at the keel parts of the carbass finally stopped. We drove out onto a smooth sea, on which the recent strong platoon had already managed to subside.
The monastery seems clearer and clearer: the bell tower has separated from the churches, the towers have stood out from the wall, and much more is visible. The Zayatsky Islands to the right become clear in equally remarkable detail. We continue rowing. The monastery was completely white between a group of trees and presented one of those views that you can admire and admire. Its view was as good as a group of stone buildings can be, and especially in such a place and after that, when before the eye had met only bare, barren granite islands and desolation and silence everywhere. In general, the monastery was very similar to all other Russian monasteries. The only difference was that its wall was full of huge stones, unhewn, randomly driven into the wall as if by inhuman hands and force. This diversity of picturesqueness and - so to speak - its wildness captivated me. My rowers also praised the monastery fence.
At half past ten o'clock the monastery was about two versts away, which was promised to take only half an hour. At exactly ten o'clock we are already walking along the Solovetsky Bay between a row of granite corgas with a myriad of wooden crosses. All three banks, facing the sides, are lined with the same crosses. There are boats and small vessels in the bay; They say that the largest ships can approach the very monastery pier - the lip is so deep!
<…>Horses with bells on their necks roam along the coast; disabled soldiers walk; Orthodox people are moving on the moored boat; from behind the fence, the monastery churches turn white and a ringing bell rings out, echoing for a long time. To the right of the Arkhangelsk hotel there is a green aspen forest, to the left there are birch trees, and low white posts of the second fence can be seen. Further on, the sea sparkles with its boundless, endless surface. The seagulls continue to scream unbearably sadly, the sail at the pier is white - the monks are catching herring for today's meal. The sun is shining cheerfully and spreading a pleasant, captivating warmth.
I left the room and went to wander near the fence.
Here, on the shore of the bay, two chapels were built: one Petrovskaya, in memory of Peter the Great’s two visits to the monastery, the other Konstantinovskaya, in memory of the visit of the monastery by Grand Duke Konstantin Nikolaevich. Near them stands a granite obelisk as a keepsake and with detailed description bombardment of the monastery by the British.<…>
Directly opposite the monastery gates there was a third chapel, called Prosforo-Chudovaya.
“At this place,” the monks explained to me, “the Novgorod merchants dropped the prosphora that our righteous father Zosima gave them. A dog ran past and wanted to eat, but the fire coming from the prosphora burned it.
A mile from the monastery, the fourth chapel, Taborskaya, was built on the spot where the dead and killed from the Moscow army that besieged the monastery from 1667 to 1677 were buried.
The reason for the uprising of the Solovetsky elders, as is known, was the correction of church books by Patriarch Nikon. In 1656, the newly corrected books were sent to the Solovetsky Monastery. The elders, already knowing about the Moscow riots and strife, as well as the fact that the correctional officer himself (once a Solovetsky monk) was under the tsar’s wrath, did not look at the books sent from Moscow, but, having sealed them in chests, placed them in the armory. Church services were conducted according to old books. In 1661, many priests were sent from Moscow to convert the elders to repentance. The Moscow government thought of doing good, but made a mistake.<…>
Inspecting the current state of the monastery and delving into all the details of its internal and external structure, almost at every step we encounter the name of St. Metropolitan Philip, who was abbot here from 1548 to 1566. In these eighteen years, he managed to do a lot that still has all the power of its material significance. Placed in an exceptional position, the favorite of the formidable king, generous with gifts and alms, himself the son of a rich father from the old boyar family of the Kolychevs, St. Philip did not constrain himself with material resources in order to satisfy all his aspirations and thoughts. He exclusively devoted his activities to making Solovetsky Island, which had been very neglected until that time, as comfortable as possible for habitation: he dug ditches, cleared out hay meadows and increased their number, built roads through forests, mountains and swamps, built a hospital for the sick brethren, established the best and healthiest food possible, inside the monastery, next to the drying room, built a stone water mill and for it brought water from 52 distant lakes of the main Solovetsky Island, built a well in the fraternal and common kitchen, into which water was piped from the Holy Lake through an underground pipe under fortress wall. The pump of this well is heated in winter by a specially constructed stove. Another oven now cooks up to 200 loaves at a time. When there are many pilgrims, two kneading bowls are placed in this oven a day, the bread is left to rest for a day, and the next day it is all eaten. The workers eat the leftovers, and the remains of these leftovers are turned into crackers. Previously, it was the custom to give each pilgrim a wide slice for the journey, but now this, they say, has fallen out of use. The kvass store contains 50 barrels of 200 buckets each.
Above all this, St. Philip multiplied livestock and built a special cow yard for them on the Muksalmah Islands. He also bred Lapland deer on the island, which live there to this day; built spacious cathedral churches and a huge meal that could accommodate over a thousand guests and brethren. Near the monastery, he made embankments and various machines to ease the work of workers, built brick factories, replaced the ancient cast-iron slabs - riveting, beating - with bells, appointed salaries to the rulers of the Pomeranian volosts, tiuns, servants and door closers, etc., etc.
The monastery is currently in such a state that it does not need much; Only wheat, wine, rye and a certain amount of salt are purchased for the monastery, and he has his own almost everything else. Even with a slight glance, the monastery amazes with its immense wealth. Without looking into his chests, which, they say, are bursting with an excess of silver, gold, pearls and other jewelry, you can easily see that in addition to the annual expenses for the brethren, he still has a huge surplus, which is allowed to grow on interest.<…>
Trade is carried out everywhere, in almost all corners of the monastery: on the porch of the Anzersky monastery they sell a popular print of this monastery, on the Anzerskaya Mount Golgotha (in the monastery) they sell a view of the Golgotha monastery, and everywhere there are some books, and everywhere the monk’s poems. You can buy boots made of seal leather, you can also buy a wide monastic belt made of the same leather, quite well dressed in the monastery itself. In the monastery itself, icons are painted, and dresses are sewn not only for monks, but also for full-time servants who are required to do menial and more difficult work. More than half of the workers live by vow. They make vows in case of dangers, which are so rich in the inhospitable White Sea. The seal fishery, called dragging, is tempting in terms of the richness of its prey, dangerous in its nature, and kills many people. The beast is killed on distant ice floes; These ice floes are often torn off by the winds and dragged out to sea along with industrialists. The lucky ones are nailed to the island of Sosnowiec or to the Tersky coast. It is they who give, in gratitude for salvation, a vow to work for free for the monastery for three to five years.
Most are carried into the ocean to inevitable death.
In the monastery, sea animals are caught, their fat is rendered, and their skin is tanned. There are seines for belugas, and there are nets for seals and white whales. The best variety of White Sea herring, small, tender meat, fatty. Only extremely bad salting, some kind of neglect of this matter, prevents them from being put on sale. The herring caught in the summer go to fish soup, the herring caught in the fall are partly consumed, and partly are used for future use in the winter. The linen for monastic underwear is not purchased: it is carried by religious women from different parts of vast Russia; they also bring threads. The monastery has its own cows for milk, cottage cheese and butter; Sheep living on Zayatsky Island provide wool for winter monastic sheepskin coats and meat for the meals of full-time monastic servants on fasting days. The monastery also has its own horses. Between the monks and full-time ministers there are representatives of all kinds of crafts: silversmiths, metalworkers, coppersmiths, tinsmiths, tailors, shoemakers, carvers. All other skills that do not require special knowledge are divided into obediences; these are: fishermen, sellers, bakers, millers, painters.
In this respect, the monastery represents a whole separate society, independent, strong in resources and, moreover, significantly populous. Annual abundant contributions and proper management promise the monastery countless years ahead.<…>
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Stories about the Motherland, about our Russian land, about endless expanses native land in the works of Russian classics by famous writers and teachers Mikhail Prishvin, Konstantin Ushinsky, Ivan Shmelev, Ivan Turgenev, Ivan Bunin, Evgeny Permyak, Konstantin Paustovsky.
My homeland (From childhood memories)
Prishvin M.M.
My mother got up early, before the sun. One day I also got up before the sun to set a snare for quails at dawn. Mother treated me to tea with milk. This milk was boiled in a clay pot and always covered with a ruddy foam on top, and under this foam it was incredibly tasty, and it made tea wonderful.
This treat changed my life for the better: I started getting up before the sun to drink delicious tea with my mother. Little by little, I got so used to this morning getting up that I could no longer sleep through the sunrise.
Then in the city I got up early, and now I always write early, when I’m all animal and vegetable world awakens and also begins to work in its own way.
And often, often I think: what if we rose with the sun for our work! How much health, joy, life and happiness would come to people then!
After tea I went hunting for quails, starlings, nightingales, grasshoppers, turtle doves, and butterflies. I didn’t have a gun then, and even now a gun is not necessary in my hunting.
My hunt was then and now - in finds. It was necessary to find something in nature that I had not yet seen, and perhaps no one had ever encountered this in their life...
My farm was large, there were countless paths.
My young friends! We are the masters of our nature and for us it is a storehouse of the sun with great treasures of life. Not only do these treasures need to be protected, they must be opened and shown.
Fish need clean water - we will protect our reservoirs.
There are various valuable animals in the forests, steppes, and mountains - we will protect our forests, steppes, and mountains.
For fish - water, for birds - air, for animals - forest, steppe, mountains.
But a person needs a homeland. And protecting nature means protecting the homeland.
Our fatherland
Ushinsky K.D.
Our fatherland, our homeland is Mother Russia. We call Russia Fatherland because our fathers and grandfathers lived in it from time immemorial.
We call it homeland because we were born in it. They speak in our native language, and everything in it is native to us; and as a mother - because she fed us with her bread, gave us drink with her waters, taught us her language, like a mother she protects and protects us from all enemies.
Our Motherland is great - the Holy Russian land! From west to east it stretches for almost eleven thousand miles; and from north to south four and a half.
Rus' is spread out not in one, but in two parts of the world: in Europe and in Asia...
There are many in the world, and besides Russia, all sorts of good states and lands, but a person has one natural mother - he has one homeland.
Russian song
Ivan Shmelev
I was looking forward to summer, watching its approach by signs well known to me.
The earliest harbinger of summer was the striped bag. They pulled him out of a huge chest, saturated with the smell of camphor, and dumped out of it a pile of canvas jackets and pants to try on. I had to stand in one place for a long time, take it off, put it on, take it off again and put it on again, while they turned me around, pinned me, lowered it and let it go - “half an inch.” I was sweating and spinning, and behind the still-unexposed frames, poplar branches with buds golden from glue swayed and the sky turned joyfully blue.
The second and important sign of spring-summer was the appearance of a red-haired painter, who smelled of spring itself - putty and paints. The painter came to put up the frames - “to let in spring” - to make repairs. He always appeared suddenly and said gloomily, swaying:
Well, where do you have something here?..
And with such an air he snatched the chisels from behind the ribbon of his dirty apron, as if he wanted to stab him. Then he began to tear off the putty and purr angrily under his breath:
And-ah and te-we-nay le-so...
Yes yehh and te-we-na-ay...
Ah-ehh and in the dark...
And in the same... we-we-mm!..
And he sang louder. And whether because all he sang was about the dark forest, or because he jumped and sighed, looking fiercely from under his brows, he seemed very scary to me.
Then we got to know him well when he pulled my friend Vaska by the hair.
That's how it was.
The painter worked, had lunch and fell asleep on the roof of the entryway, in the sun. Having purred about the dark forest, where “sy-toya-la ah yes and so-senka,” the painter fell asleep without saying anything else. He lay on his back, and his red beard looked into the sky. To get more wind, Vaska and I also climbed onto the roof to let the “monk” in. But there was no wind on the roof either. Then Vaska, having nothing better to do, began to tickle the painter’s bare heels with a straw. But they were covered with gray and hard skin, like putty, and the painter didn’t care. Then I leaned towards the painter’s ear and sang in a trembling thin voice:
And-ah and in that-we-nom le-uh...
The painter's mouth twisted, and a smile crept from under his red mustache onto his dry lips. It must have been pleasant for him, but he still did not wake up. Then Vaska suggested getting to work on the painter properly. And we started anyway.
Vaska dragged a large brush and a bucket of paint onto the roof and painted the painter’s heels. The painter kicked and calmed down. Vaska made a face and continued. He traced a green bracelet around the ankles, and I carefully painted the thumbs and nails.
The painter snored sweetly, probably from pleasure.
Then Vaska drew a wide “enchanted circle” around the painter, squatted down and began to sing a song right over the painter’s ear, which I picked up with pleasure:
The redhead asked:
How did you shine your beard?
I am not paint, not putty,
I was lying in the sun!
I was lying in the sun
He kept his beard up!
The painter stirred and yawned. We became silent, and he turned on his side and painted himself. That's where it happened. I waved through the dormer window, and Vaska slipped and fell into the painter’s paws. The painter scolded Vaska and threatened to dip him in a bucket, but he soon became amused, stroked Vaska on the back and said:
Don't cry, you fool. The same one grows in my village. What a waste of the owner's paint, you fool... and he's still roaring!
From that incident the painter became our friend. He sang to us the whole song about the dark forest, how they cut down a pine tree, how “hey, how good is it for a good fellow to go to someone else’s distant place!” It was a good song. And he sang it so pitifully that I thought: was he singing it to himself? He also sang other songs - about the “dark autumn night”, and about the “birch tree”, and also about the “clean field”...
For the first time then, on the roof of the entryway, I felt a world unknown to me before - melancholy and freedom, hidden in a Russian song, the soul of my native people, unknown in its depths, tender and harsh, covered with a rough robe. Then, on the roof of the entryway, in the cooing of rock doves, in the sad sounds of a painter’s song, a new world opened up to me - both the gentle and harsh nature of Russian, in which the soul yearns and waits for something... Then, in my early days, - for the first time, perhaps, - I felt the strength and beauty folk word Russian, his softness, and affection, and expanse. It just came and fell tenderly into the soul. Then I came to know him: his strength and sweetness. And I still recognize him...
Village
Ivan Turgenev
Last day of June; for a thousand miles around Russia is our native land.
The whole sky is filled with an even blue; There is only one cloud on it - either floating or melting. Calm, warm... the air is fresh milk!
The larks are ringing; goofy pigeons coo; swallows soar silently; horses snort and chew; the dogs do not bark and stand quietly wagging their tails.
And it smells like smoke, and grass, and a little tar, and a little leather. The hemp plants have already entered into force and are releasing their heavy but pleasant spirit.
A deep but gentle ravine. On the sides, in several rows, are big-headed willows, fissured at the bottom. A stream runs through the ravine; at the bottom of it, small pebbles seem to tremble through light ripples. In the distance, at the end-edge of earth and sky, there is the bluish line of a large river.
Along the ravine - on one side there are neat barns, cubicles with tightly closed doors; on the other side there are five or six pine huts with plank roofs. Above each roof is a tall birdhouse pole; above each porch there is a carved iron steeply maned ridge. The uneven glass of the windows shimmers with the colors of the rainbow. Jugs with bouquets are painted on the shutters. In front of each hut there is a decorative bench; on the rubble the cats curled up in a ball, their transparent ears pricked up; beyond the high rapids the vestibule darkens coolly.
I am lying at the very edge of the ravine on a spread blanket; There are whole heaps of freshly mown, languidly fragrant hay all around. The clever owners scattered the hay in front of the huts: let it dry a little more in the hot sun, and then go to the barn! It will be nice to sleep on it!
Curly children's heads stick out from every heap; tufted hens look for midges and insects in the hay; a white-lipped puppy flounders in tangled blades of grass.
Fair-haired guys, in clean, low-belted shirts, in heavy boots with trim, exchange glib words, leaning their chests on an unharnessed cart, and grin at each other.
A chubby young woman looks out of the window; laughs either at their words or at the fuss of the guys in the piled hay.
Another pullet with strong hands drags a large wet bucket from the well... The bucket trembles and swings on the rope, dropping long fiery drops.
The old housewife stands in front of me in a new checkered coat and new cats.
Large blown beads in three rows wrapped around her dark, thin neck; the gray head is tied with a yellow scarf with red specks; he hung low over the dimmed eyes.
But the old eyes smile welcomingly; The whole wrinkled face smiles. Tea, the old lady is reaching her seventh decade... and now you can see: she was a beauty in her time!
Spreading out the tanned fingers of her right hand, she holds a pot of cold, unskimmed milk, straight from the cellar; the walls of the pot are covered with dewdrops, like beads. In the palm of her left hand, the old woman brings me a large slice of still warm bread. “Eat to your health, visiting guest!”
The rooster suddenly crowed and busily flapped its wings; the locked calf mooed in response, slowly.
Oh, contentment, peace, excess of the Russian free village! Oh, peace and grace!
And I think: why do we need the cross on the dome of Hagia Sophia in Tsar-Grad, and everything that we, city people, are striving for?
Mowers
Ivan Bunin
We walked along high road, and they mowed in a young birch forest near her - and sang.
It was a long time ago, it was an infinitely long time ago, because the life that we all lived at that time will not return forever.
They mowed and sang, and the entire birch forest, which had not yet lost its density and freshness, still full of flowers and smells, responded loudly to them.
All around us were fields, the wilderness of central, primordial Russia. It was late afternoon on a June day... The old high road, overgrown with bushes, cut by dead ruts, traces of the ancient life of our fathers and grandfathers, stretched out before us into the endless Russian distance. The sun was leaning to the west, began to set in beautiful light clouds, softening the blue behind the distant hills of the fields and casting great light pillars towards the sunset, where the sky was already golden, as they are painted in church paintings. A flock of sheep was gray in front, an old shepherd with a shepherd sat on the boundary, winding a whip... It seemed that there was no, and there never was, neither time nor its division into centuries, into years in this forgotten - or blessed - country . And they walked and sang among its eternal field silence, simplicity and primitiveness with some kind of epic freedom and selflessness. And the birch forest accepted and picked up their song as freely and freely as they sang.
They were “distant”, from Ryazan. A small artel of them passed through our Oryol places, helping our hayfields and moving to the lower ranks, to earn money during the working season in the steppes, even more fertile than ours. And they were carefree, friendly, as people are on a long and long journey, on vacation from all family and economic ties, they were “eager to work,” unconsciously rejoicing in its beauty and efficiency. They were somehow older and more solid than ours - in custom, in behavior, in language - neat and beautiful clothes, their soft leather shoe covers, white well-tied footwear, clean trousers and shirts with red, red collars and the same gussets.
A week ago they were mowing the forest near us, and I saw, while riding on horseback, how they went to work, having had their afternoon break: they drank spring water from wooden jugs - so long, so sweetly, as only animals and good, healthy Russians drink farm laborers - then they crossed themselves and cheerfully ran to the place with white, shiny, razor-shaped braids on their shoulders, as they ran they entered the line, let the braids all go at once, widely, playfully, and walked, walked in a free, even line. And on the way back I saw their dinner. They sat in a fresh clearing near an extinguished fire, using spoons to drag pieces of something pink out of cast iron.
I said:
Bread and salt, hello.
They answered cordially:
Good health, you are welcome!
The clearing descended to the ravine, revealing the still bright west behind the green trees. And suddenly, looking closer, I saw with horror that what they were eating were fly agaric mushrooms, terrible with their dope. And they just laughed:
It's okay, they're sweet, pure chicken!
Now they sang: “Forgive me, goodbye, dear friend!” - moved through the birch forest, thoughtlessly depriving it of thick grasses and flowers, and sang without noticing it. And we stood and listened to them, feeling that we would never forget this early evening hour and would never understand, and most importantly, not fully express what the wonderful charm of their song was.
Its charm was in the responses, in the sonority of the birch forest. Its beauty was that it was in no way on its own: it was connected with everything that we and they, these Ryazan mowers, saw and felt. The beauty was in that unconscious, but blood relationship that was between them and us - and between them, us and this grain-bearing field that surrounded us, this field air that they and we breathed since childhood, this late afternoon, these clouds in the already pinkish west, with this snowy, young forest, full of waist-deep honey herbs, countless wild flowers and berries, which they constantly picked and ate, and this big road, its spaciousness and reserved distance. The beauty was that we were all children of our homeland and were all together and we all felt good, calm and loving without a clear understanding of our feelings, because we don’t need them, we shouldn’t understand them when they exist. And there was also a charm (already completely unrecognized by us then) that this homeland, this common home of ours was Russia, and that only her soul could sing the way the mowers sang in this birch forest responding to their every breath.
The beauty was that it was as if there was no singing at all, but just sighs, the rise of a young, healthy, melodious chest. One breast sang, as songs were once sung only in Russia and with that spontaneity, with that incomparable lightness, naturalness, which was characteristic of the song only to the Russian. It was felt that the man was so fresh, strong, so naive in ignorance of his strengths and talents and so full of song that he only needed to sigh lightly for the whole forest to respond to that kind and affectionate, and sometimes daring and powerful sonority with which these sighs filled him .
They moved, without the slightest effort, throwing scythes around them, exposing clearings in wide semicircles in front of them, mowing, knocking out the area of stumps and bushes and sighing without the slightest effort, each in their own way, but in general expressing one thing, doing on a whim something unified, completely integral , extraordinarily beautiful. And beautiful with a very special, purely Russian beauty were those feelings that they told with their sighs and half-words along with the responding distance, the depth of the forest.
Of course, they “said goodbye, parted” with their “darling side”, and with their happiness, and with hopes, and with the one with whom this happiness was united:
Forgive me, goodbye, dear friend,
And, darling, oh, goodbye, little side! -
they each sighed differently, with varying degrees of sadness and love, but with the same carefree, hopeless reproach.
Forgive me, goodbye, my dear, unfaithful one,
Has my heart become blacker than dirt for you? -
they spoke, complaining and yearning in different ways, emphasizing the words in different ways, and suddenly they all merged at once in a completely harmonious feeling of almost delight in the face of their death, youthful audacity in the face of fate and some kind of extraordinary, all-forgiving generosity - as if they were shaking their heads and threw it all over the forest:
If you don’t love, aren’t nice, God be with you,
If you find something better, you’ll forget! -
and all over the forest it responded to the friendly strength, freedom and chesty sonority of their voices, froze and again, loudly thundering, picked up:
Oh, if you find something better, you’ll forget,
If you find something worse, you will regret it!
What else was the charm of this song, its inescapable joy despite all its seemingly hopelessness? The fact is that man still did not believe, and could not believe, due to his strength and innocence, in this hopelessness. “Oh, yes, all the paths are closed to me, young man!” - he said, sweetly mourning himself. But those who really have no way or road anywhere do not cry sweetly and do not sing of their sorrows. “Forgive me, goodbye, my dear side!” - the man said - and knew that, after all, there was no real separation for him from her, from his homeland, that, no matter where his fate took him, his native sky would still be above him, and around him - the boundless native Rus', disastrous for him, spoiled, except for its freedom, space and fabulous wealth. “The red sun set behind the dark forests, ah, all the birds fell silent, everyone sat down in their places!” My happiness has ended, he sighed, dark night with its wilderness surrounds me, - and yet I felt: he is so close in blood to this wilderness, alive for him, virgin and filled with magical powers, that everywhere he has shelter, lodging for the night, there is someone’s intercession, someone’s kindness. care, someone’s voice whispering: “Don’t worry, the morning is wiser than the evening, nothing is impossible for me, sleep well, child!” - And from all sorts of troubles, according to his faith, birds and forest animals, beautiful and wise princesses, and even Baba Yaga herself, who pitied him “because of his youth,” helped him out. There were flying carpets for him, invisible hats, milk rivers flowed, semi-precious treasures were hidden, for all mortal spells there were the keys of ever-living water, he knew prayers and spells, miraculous, again according to his faith, he flew away from prisons, casting himself as a clear falcon , hitting the damp Mother Earth, dense wilds, black swamps, flying sands defended him from dashing neighbors and enemies - and forgave merciful god for all the daring whistles, the knives are sharp, hot...
There was one more thing, I say, in this song - this is what both we and they, these Ryazan men, knew well in the depths of our souls, that we were infinitely happy in those days, now infinitely distant - and irrevocable. For everything has its time - the fairy tale has passed for us too: our ancient intercessors abandoned us, prowling animals fled, prophetic birds scattered, self-assembled tablecloths folded, prayers and spells were desecrated, Mother Cheese Earth dried up, life-giving springs dried up - and the end came , the limit of God's forgiveness. 
A fairy tale about our native Urals
Evgeniy Permyak
There is more than enough nonsense in this fairy tale. In forgotten dark times, someone’s idle tongue gave birth to this tale and sent it around the world. Her life was so-so. Malomalskoye. In some places she hid, in some places she lived up to our age and got into my ears.
Don't let this fairy tale go to waste! Somewhere, for someone, maybe it will do. If it takes root, let it live. No - my business is my side. What I bought for is what I sell for.
Listen.
Soon as our land hardened, as the land separated from the seas, it was populated by all sorts of animals and birds, and from the depths of the earth, from the steppes of the Caspian region, a golden Snake snake crawled out. With crystal scales, with a semi-precious tint, a fiery interior, ore bones, copper veining...
He decided to gird the earth with himself. I conceived and crawled from the Caspian midday steppes to the cold midnight seas.
He crawled for more than a thousand miles as if on a string, and then began to wobble.
Apparently it was in the fall. The whole night found him. No way! Like in a cellar. Zarya doesn't even study.
The runner wagged. He turned from the Usa River to the Ob and headed for Yamal. Cold! After all, he came out of hot, hellish places. I went to the left. And he walked several hundred miles and saw the Varangian ridges. Apparently the snake didn't like them. And he decided to fly straight through the ice of the cold seas.
He waved, but no matter how thick the ice is, can it withstand such a colossus? Could not resist. Cracked. Donkey.
Then the Serpent sank to the bottom of the sea. What does he care about the immense thickness! It crawls along the seabed with its belly, and the ridge rises above the sea. This one won't drown. Just cold.
No matter how hot the fiery blood of the Snake-Snake is, no matter how boiling everything around is, the sea is still not a tub of water. You won't heat it up.
The runner began to cool down. From the head. Well, if you get a cold in your head, that’s the end of your body. He began to grow numb, and soon became completely petrified.
The fiery blood in him became oil. Meat - in ores. The ribs are like stones. The vertebrae and ridges became rocks. Scales - gems. And everything else - everything that exists in the depths of the earth. From salts to diamonds. From gray granite to patterned jaspers and marbles.
Years have passed, centuries have passed. The petrified giant was overgrown with a lush spruce forest, pine expanse, cedar fun, larch beauty.
And now it will never occur to anyone that the mountains were once a living snake-snake.
And the years went by and went by. People settled on the slopes of the mountains. The snake was called the Stone Belt. After all, he girded our land, although not all of it. That’s why they gave him a formal name, a sonorous one - Ural.
I can’t say where this word came from. That's just what everyone calls him now. Although it is a short word, it has absorbed a lot, like Rus'...
Collection of miracles
Konstantin Paustovsky
Everyone, even the most serious person, not to mention, of course, the boys, has his own secret and slightly funny dream. I had the same dream - to definitely get to Borovoe Lake.
From the village where I lived that summer, the lake was only twenty kilometers away. Everyone tried to dissuade me from going - the road is boring, and the lake is like a lake, all around there is only forest, dry swamps and lingonberries. The picture is famous!
Why are you rushing there, to this lake! - the garden watchman Semyon was angry. - What didn’t you see? What a fussy, grasping people, oh my God! You see, he needs to touch everything with his own hand, look out with his own eye! What will you look for there? One pond. And nothing more!
Were you there?
Why did he surrender to me, this lake! I don't have anything else to do, or what? This is where they sit, all my business! - Semyon tapped his brown neck with his fist. - On the hill!
But I still went to the lake. Two village boys stuck with me - Lyonka and Vanya.
Before we had time to leave the outskirts, the complete hostility of the characters of Lyonka and Vanya was immediately revealed. Lyonka calculated everything he saw around him into rubles.
“Look,” he told me in his booming voice, “the gander is coming.” How long do you think he can handle?
How do I know!
“It’s probably worth a hundred rubles,” Lyonka said dreamily and immediately asked: “But how much will this pine tree last?” Two hundred rubles? Or for all three hundred?
Accountant! - Vanya remarked contemptuously and sniffed. - He himself has brains worth a dime, but he asks prices for everything. My eyes would not look at him.
After that, Lyonka and Vanya stopped, and I heard a well-known conversation - a harbinger of a fight. It consisted, as is customary, only of questions and exclamations.
Whose brains are they asking for a dime? My?
Probably not mine!
Look!
See for yourself!
Don't grab it! The cap was not sewn for you!
Oh, I wish I could push you in my own way!
Don't scare me! Don't poke me in the nose! The fight was short but decisive.
Lyonka picked up his cap, spat and went, offended, back to the village. I began to shame Vanya.
Of course! - said Vanya, embarrassed. - I got into a fight in the heat of the moment. Everyone is fighting with him, with Lyonka. He's kind of boring! Give him free rein, he puts prices on everything, like in a general store. For every spikelet. And he will certainly clear the entire forest and chop it down for firewood. And I’m afraid more than anything in the world when the forest is being cleared. I'm so afraid of passion!
Why so?
Oxygen from forests. The forests will be cut down, the oxygen will become liquid and smelly. And the earth will no longer be able to attract him, to keep him close to him. Where will he fly? - Vanya pointed to the fresh morning sky. - The person will have nothing to breathe. The forester explained it to me.
We climbed the slope and entered an oak copse. Immediately red ants began to eat us. They stuck to my legs and fell from the branches by the collar. Dozens of ant roads, covered with sand, stretched between oaks and junipers. Sometimes such a road passed, as if through a tunnel, under the gnarled roots of an oak tree and rose again to the surface. Ant traffic on these roads was continuous. The ants ran in one direction empty, and returned with goods - white grains, dry beetle legs, dead wasps and a furry caterpillar.
Bustle! - Vanya said. - Like in Moscow. An old man comes to this forest from Moscow to collect ant eggs. Every year. They take it away in bags. This is the best bird food. And they are good for fishing. You need a tiny little hook!
Behind an oak copse, on the edge of a loose sandy road, stood a lopsided cross with a black tin icon. Red ladybugs with white speckles were crawling along the cross.
A quiet wind blew in my face from the oat fields. The oats rustled, bent, and a gray wave ran over them.
Beyond the oat field we passed through the village of Polkovo. I have long noticed that almost all of the regiment’s peasants differ from the surrounding residents in their tall stature.
Stately people in Polkovo! - our Zaborevskys said with envy. - Grenadiers! Drummers!
In Polkovo we went to rest in the hut of Vasily Lyalin, a tall, handsome old man with a piebald beard. Gray strands stuck out in disarray in his black shaggy hair.
When we entered Lyalin’s hut, he shouted:
Keep your heads down! Heads! Everyone is smashing my forehead against the lintel! It hurts in Polkovo tall people, but they are slow-witted - they set the huts according to their low height.
While talking with Lyalin, I finally learned why the regimental peasants were so tall.
Story! - said Lyalin. - Do you think we went so high in vain? Even the little bug doesn’t live in vain. It also has its purpose.
Vanya laughed.
Wait until you laugh! - Lyalin remarked sternly. - I’m not yet learned enough to laugh. You listen. Was there such a foolish tsar in Russia - Emperor Paul? Or wasn't it?
“Yes,” Vanya said. - We studied.
Was and floated away. And he did such a lot of things that we still have hiccups to this day. The gentleman was fierce. A soldier at the parade squinted his eyes in the wrong direction - he now gets excited and begins to thunder: “To Siberia! To hard labor! Three hundred ramrods!” This is what the king was like! Well, what happened was that the grenadier regiment did not please him. He shouts: “March in the indicated direction for a thousand miles!” Let's go! And after a thousand miles, stop for an eternal rest!” And he points in the direction with his finger. Well, the regiment, of course, turned and walked. What are you going to do? We walked and walked for three months and reached this place. The forest all around is impassable. One wild. They stopped and began cutting down huts, crushing clay, laying stoves, and digging wells. They built a village and called it Polkovo, as a sign that a whole regiment built it and lived in it. Then, of course, liberation came, and the soldiers took root in this area, and, almost, everyone stayed here. The area, as you can see, is fertile. There were those soldiers - grenadiers and giants - our ancestors. Our growth comes from them. If you don’t believe it, go to the city, to the museum. They will show you the papers there. Everything is spelled out in them. And just think, if only they could walk two more miles and come out to the river, they would stop there. But no, they didn’t dare disobey the order, they definitely stopped. People are still surprised. “Why are you guys from the regiment, they say, running into the forest? Didn't you have a place by the river? They say they are scary, big guys, but apparently they don’t have enough guesses in their heads.” Well, you explain to them how it happened, then they agree. “They say you can’t fight against an order! It is a fact!"
Vasily Lyalin volunteered to take us to the forest and show us the path to Borovoe Lake. First we passed through a sandy field overgrown with immortelle and wormwood. Then thickets of young pines ran out to meet us. Pine forest greeted us after the hot fields with silence and coolness. High in the slanting rays of the sun, blue jays fluttered as if on fire. Clear puddles stood on the overgrown road, and clouds floated through these blue puddles. It smelled of strawberries and heated tree stumps. Drops of either dew or yesterday’s rain glistened on the leaves of the hazel tree. Cones fell loudly.
Great forest! - Lyalin sighed. - The wind will blow, and these pines will hum like bells.
Then the pines gave way to birches, and water sparkled behind them.
Borovoe? - I asked.
No. It’s still a walk and a walk to get to Borovoye. This is Larino Lake. Let's go, look into the water, take a look.
The water in Larino Lake was deep and clear to the very bottom. Only near the shore she shuddered a little - there, from under the moss, a spring flowed into the lake. At the bottom lay several dark large trunks. They sparkled with a weak and dark fire when the sun reached them.
Black oak,” said Lyalin. - Stained, centuries-old. We pulled one out, but it’s difficult to work with. Breaks saws. But if you make a thing - a rolling pin or, say, a rocker - it will last forever! Heavy wood, sinks in water.
The sun was shining in dark water. Beneath it lay ancient oak trees, as if cast from black steel. And butterflies flew over the water, reflected in it with yellow and purple petals.
Lyalin led us onto a remote road.
Walk straight,” he showed, “until you run into mosshars, a dry swamp.” And along the moss there will be a path all the way to the lake. Just be careful, there are a lot of sticks there.
He said goodbye and left. Vanya and I walked along the forest road. The forest became higher, more mysterious and darker. Streams of golden resin froze on the pine trees.
At first, the ruts that had long ago been overgrown with grass were still visible, but then they disappeared, and the pink heather covered the entire road with a dry, cheerful carpet.
The road led us to a low cliff. Beneath it lay mosshars - thick birch and aspen undergrowth warmed to the roots. The trees grew from deep moss. Small ones were scattered here and there on the moss. yellow flowers and there were dry branches with white lichen lying around.
A narrow path led through the mshars. She avoided high hummocks.
At the end of the path, the water glowed black and blue - Borovoe Lake.
We walked carefully along the mshars. Pegs, sharp as spears, stuck out from under the moss - the remains of birch and aspen trunks. Lingonberry thickets have begun. One cheek of each berry - the one turned to the south - was completely red, and the other was just beginning to turn pink.
A heavy capercaillie jumped out from behind a hummock and ran into the small forest, breaking dry wood.
We went out to the lake. The grass stood waist-high along its banks. Water splashed in the roots of old trees. A wild duckling jumped out from under the roots and ran across the water with a desperate squeak.
The water in Borovoe was black and clean. Islands of white lilies bloomed on the water and smelled sweetly. The fish struck and the lilies swayed.
What a blessing! - Vanya said. - Let's live here until our crackers run out.
I agreed.
We stayed at the lake for two days.
We saw sunsets and twilight and a tangle of plants appearing before us in the light of the fire. We heard the cries of wild geese and the sounds of night rain. He walked for a short time, about an hour, and quietly rang across the lake, as if he was stretching thin, cobweb-like, trembling strings between the black sky and water.
That's all I wanted to tell you.
But since then I will not believe anyone that there are boring places on our earth that do not provide any food for the eye, the ear, the imagination, or human thought.
Only in this way, by exploring some piece of our country, can you understand how good it is and how our hearts are attached to its every path, spring, and even to the timid squeaking of a forest bird.
Every person has a homeland. Homeland is the country where a person was born. Usually this is the place where childhood spent. The most pleasant memories are associated with them.
For me, my homeland is not only the place where I was born, but also my hometown, family, friends and nature. You are always welcome in your home, you are always welcome.
Thinking about my homeland, I see before me the streets of my beloved city, the faces of my relatives, the forests and lakes of my native land.
There is my favorite place in the city center - the Heroes' Memorial Square with the Eternal Flame. When I go there, I think about the people who went to the front. They loved their homeland so much that they were even ready to die defending it.
Each person has his own homeland. But I know for sure - this is the best place on Earth.
Russia is our homeland
Russia is our homeland, this is the country in which we were born and live. Our homeland is powerful and great. It is rich in minerals, plants, animals, rivers and lakes. Russia is a country of vast plains, high mountains, forests and steppes. More than one hundred forty-two million people live in Russia. More than a hundred different nations. Russia respects the traditions of all peoples.
We are proud of our Motherland.
My motherland
What a lofty meaning is contained in one short word - Motherland. And for each person this word contains something of its own. When thinking about our homeland, we think about that great, beautiful country in which we were born. Love for our homeland is instilled in us from childhood by our parents, educators, and teachers. Stories about major events, outstanding personalities, about their exploits and great deeds. Therefore, when thinking about our homeland, we think about the heroes of the past and present and about famous writers, poets, musicians, and artists. All this is our history, all this is our Motherland.
Motherland
Russia is our homeland. For this reason, it is more important and dearer to us than all other countries. Her fate, her achievements and troubles are reflected in each of us. A person never stops loving his homeland even if he doesn’t like something. She is ready to give her homeland the most precious thing she has - her life.
Where does the homeland begin? Homeland begins with our parents and with what surrounds us from birth. For some, homeland begins with a village house or city apartment. From your favorite pets, from your parents.
For me, my homeland begins with a cozy courtyard, in which I am used to walking with my mom and dad.
What does my homeland mean to me?
The word homeland can be given many definitions, all of them will mean something beloved, bright, joyful and warm for you.
Homeland is the place where you were born. This is your home, your street, your city and your country.
Homeland is the place where you live. This is my school, my yard, where I walk with my friends, and my home, where my closest people live.
And also our homeland is our country. Russia is the most big country in the world. We are proud of our homeland for its rich history, for great victories, for the beauty of nature, for the famous people it gave to the whole world. Homeland is a place where you always want to be.
Note
Dear students, an essay on the topic “My Homeland” for grade 4 is published without correcting errors. There are teachers who check essays for availability on the Internet. It may turn out that two similar texts will be checked. Read the sample version homework GDZ and try to write an essay on your own for a literary reading lesson about “What the Motherland means to me.”
In these historical stories, young readers will learn about turning points history of the Russian land, about military affairs and civil exploits of remarkable Russians.
Vladimir Solovyov "The First Tsar"
In no other city were there, probably, as many churches of God as there were in Moscow in the 16th century. From behind the red Kremlin wall, multi-domed cathedrals with sun-drenched golden domes stretched their necks above the quaint palace towers. Behind the shopping arcades, where huts were built from edge to edge, in which the poorer people lived, among the birch bark and plank roofs sparkling with tin, the shabby tops of the heads of modest churches, which were the majority in the huge motley city, were exposed. And as the bells began to ring in thousands of Moscow belfries, their mighty music drowned out all other sounds: heavy, echoing beats filled the entire city, went into the ground, into the sky, reverberated on every street, every square.
But at that hour when the street singer and musician Timokha, a young man of about twenty with a thick curly beard, took a liking to a place near the inn and, dashingly striking the strings of his domra, began to sing mischievously, it was unusually quiet in Moscow. Even where there were usually crowds of people along the trading benches and where constant noise could be heard, there were few people, no screams or noise could be heard.
However, Timokha’s playful domra and his vibrant song quickly attracted the curious. First one came up, then the second, and, lo and behold, twenty people had already gathered.
Only the words in his song are painfully bold. Timokha sang about the Tsar himself, about Ivan Vasilyevich, and about his bad deeds. And everyone knew: the Tsar and the Tsar’s servants are not to be trifled with. No wonder the people nicknamed the sovereign of Moscow Ivan the Terrible.
Lute was a king, cruel and quick to kill. We have already lost count of how many people were killed and tortured to death by his evil will. Executions, torture and punishment were sometimes carried out day after day. Pogroms and bloodshed did not surprise anyone. People lived in great fear, they were afraid of doing something wrong, or somehow inadvertently arousing the royal wrath. They were afraid to say an extra word: suddenly one of the Tsar’s earphones and snitches would be nearby and report. And then you won’t lose your head: they’ll catch you, put you in a dungeon (prison) - and remember what your name was! They will beat you, torture you, and maybe even take your life.
Even as a child, the future Tsar Ivan horrified those around him with his cruelty. He loved to torture animals, throwing dogs down from the window of a high mansion and watching them, bloodied and dying, whining pitifully and crawling, no longer able to stand on their paws. And then young Ivan had another pastime. In the winter in a sleigh, and in the summer in a carriage, ordering the coachman to drive the horses at full speed, he rushed through the streets of Moscow and crushed the people, laughing loudly at how maddened people scattered in different sides, and enjoying the moans and screams of the victims.
Growing up and maturing, Ivan did everything to strengthen his power. It was no longer enough for him to remain the Grand Duke. He wanted more and decided, following the example of the rulers of other major powers, to be crowned, or crowned king, or, in other words, to become a king and have enormous and strong power.
The coronation took place magnificently and solemnly in the Kremlin, in the Assumption Cathedral, with a great crowd of people, in the presence of foreign ambassadors and the Fathers of the Church.
Before Ivan Vasilyevich there were no tsars in Russia. He became the first, and the people expected that now there would be more order in the country, less untruth and injustice, ordinary people they will heal better, and the Tsar-Father, when necessary, will stand up for them and will not let anyone offend. And the tsar himself, coming out onto Red Square, full of people, promised that he would put an end to the unrest, take care of justice and protect Russians from oppressors, no matter who they were.
And at first, good changes really began to happen. The king ordered to accept complaints and requests from all dissatisfied and innocent victims, to help them and strictly punish their offenders. People rejoiced and hoped that this would continue to be the case, that not a single bad deed would be left unattended, that the Tsar would have justice for every villain in Moscow.
It was clear from everything that strong tsarist power was good for Russia. The country grew richer, expanded its borders, and merchants from all over the world willingly came to trade in Muscovy. Cities grew. The Russian army reliably defended the state from foreign invaders and won victories over hostile neighbors who hindered the strengthening and expansion of the Russian state.
However, the people did not glorify and praise the king for long. Having received unprecedented power, Ivan Vasilyevich was afraid of nothing more than losing this power. He was ready to suspect anyone and everyone of malicious intent against himself, of intrigues and conspiracies. Everywhere the king imagined insidious rivals who were just waiting to deal with him, take his place, take away his throne and royal crown.
And a difficult, difficult time began in the country, when the sovereign's guards scoured the cities and villages, looking for treason, robbing and killing those who had the slightest suspicion of disrespect for the king. Ivan the Terrible considered his main enemies to be people from rich and noble families who traced their origins back to the first Russian princes, starting with Rurik. Ivan harbored special malice towards them, because they were not inferior to him either in “breed” or in wealth. He was sure that any of them secretly only dreamed of ending his life and becoming king in his place.
Many princes and boyars - descendants of ancient families - were tortured and killed in those years. But the trouble did not escape the ignorant people either. Quite a few of them paid with their lives for no reason whatsoever. Ivan the Terrible believed that his power would be strong if everyone lived in constant fear, in complete obedience, submission, afraid to even think about resistance, and even more so about another sovereign. And therefore on Russian soil special detachments, carefully selected from people loyal to the king and only subordinate to him, just like the Mongols in their time, killed and ruined civilians, burned their houses, sparing neither old nor small. These sovereign servants were dressed all in black and armed to the teeth. Their distinctive signs were a dog's head and a broom. This meant that they, like sniffer dogs, sniffed out where the king was in danger, and were ready, without hesitation, to grab the throat of the enemies and ill-wishers of Ivan the Terrible and, like rubbish, sweep away everyone who did not want to serve him faithfully.
Once the tsar accused the entire ancient Novgorod of treason. A large and rich city was destroyed, and thousands of Novgorodians were killed - drowned in the Volkhov River.
Russians whispered to each other the story of how Ivan the Terrible, in anger, killed his eldest son because he dared to contradict his father. And just as secretly, hiding behind the ears of others, they told how terribly the tsar acted with the builders of the Intercession Cathedral - a marvelous
temple on Red Square, which looked like a colorful, bright carpet hanging from the sky.
Ivan allegedly called the architects - those according to whose plans and under whose leadership the cathedral was being built, and asked:
“And what, masters, can you make the temple even more beautiful and better than this?”
"Can. Just order, sir,” answered the architects, bowing low before the king.
And then Ivan the Terrible ordered the clear eyes of the glorious craftsmen to be gouged out, so that in no other land there would be a temple equal in beauty and grandeur to the Pokrovsky one in Moscow.
And the tsar ordered the bird-man Nikita, about whose prowess, courage, intelligence and bravery there had been legends for a long time, to be thrown from a great height into a deep pit where sharp knives, pikes and sabers. And, pierced through, he bled to death and died in unbearable pain, never understanding what his fault was and why he was put to death.
What did the poor guy do? What angered the king?
This man’s cherished dream was to rise into the sky and fly like a crane. And he made wings for himself, climbed to the very top of the sixty-two-meter Church of the Ascension in the village of Kolomenskoye near Moscow, jumped from there and, in front of the amazed eyes of the people, began to soar like an eagle or a falcon, and sank to the ground safe and sound.
The king heard about this and said:
“A person should not fly, but walk on the ground.” And he ordered the execution of the brave man. This is how, probably, the first aeronaut known in Russian history died, who managed to fly over the earth and experience the incomparable feeling of flight.
Maybe half of what they said about Ivan the Terrible is just fiction, fairy tales, or maybe even reality - who knows. It is only reliably known that by his evil will a lot of blood was shed and many lives were destroyed.
It was scary, scary to listen to his songs, but people stood and did not leave. Some even pushed their way forward, pushing the crowd aside, so as not to miss anything, not to miss a word.
And Timokha would have played and sung for a long time, but then some big-eyed artisan saw that the innkeeper, trying to remain unnoticed, slipped out of the inn and hurried somewhere.
Everyone immediately scattered. After all, if you are caught for listening to such daring songs about the Tsar, you will not be alive - you will be beaten to death or thrown to the dogs.
“And you, dear man, run and save yourself! - the workman shouted from afar to the hesitant Timokha. - You will be the first to suffer. They'll pour lead down your throat, you monsters, and then you'll only sing in the next world. Take your feet in your hands and go!”
After these words, Timokha rushed so that only his heels sparkled and the dust rose behind him in a column. And I made it on time! He had barely disappeared when horsemen in black galloped up to the very place where he was entertaining the people. But Timokhi was already gone. Chasing him yielded nothing. The sovereign's servants had to return with nothing.
Oleg Tikhomirov “A Tale of the Defense of Moscow and the Feat of Minin and Pozharsky”
TERRIBLE NEWS
On a clear May day in 1591, a messenger was hurrying along the road to Moscow. Oh, what a hurry!
The messenger was in a hurry with the black news. The young Tsarevich Dmitry, the youngest son of the Tsar the Terrible, Ivan Vasilyevich, was killed in Uglich.
The messenger had been galloping all day, and before his eyes the crowd that had seized the murderers of the damned was still buzzing, and Dmitry’s scarlet blood was burning on the stone slabs. Moreover, the messenger could still hear the sound of the bell groaning and straining.
The vile murderers were seized by an angry crowd. They laid the Tsarevich in the temple, and decided to send a messenger to Moscow to report everything to Tsar Fedor. He was the brother of the murdered Dmitry.
What will happen now, what will happen? Who will reign in Rus'? Tsar Fedor is sickly and “weak in mind.” All affairs of the Moscow state are ruled by the boyar Boris Godunov, he imposes his will on the tsar, and only cares about his own benefit. The king has no children, no heir. Therefore, in Rus' they believed that Tsarevich Dmitry would get the throne. And that's how it happened!
The messenger did not reach the king. Boris Godunov placed his people on the Uglitsky road. They grabbed the messenger and brought him to Godunov.
“Give me the letter here,” Boris ordered.
“That letter was written for the king,” the messenger objected.
Godunov knitted his eyebrows and threatened:
-Are you tired of living, fool?
The messenger got scared and took out the letter. Boris hid it from the Tsar, and wrote another one in return. It reported that Dmitry himself accidentally stabbed himself with a knife when he was playing “poke” with small children. The king cried and said:
- May God's will be done!
It was not for nothing that they called him “a child in mind and spirit.”
And among the people there was a rumor that the murderers caught in Uglich had confessed before their deaths: on Godunov’s orders, Tsarevich Dmitry was stabbed to death.
Boris sent faithful people to Uglich. Two hundred Uglich residents were executed, and others had their tongues cut out, others were thrown into prison, and others were sent into exile.
The boyars did not like Godunov. But that year they did not dare to stand against his will: Boris is very strong, he has a lot of power.
The townspeople began to worry, but became quiet. There was no big turmoil.
TROUBLE AFTER TROUBLE
“It’s cold for me... It’s cold,” said Tsar Fedor, dying.
They covered him with furs and added wood to the stove.
The boyars asked:
- To whom, sir, do you command the kingdom?
“As God wishes, so it will be,” he answered quietly.
Godunov was considered the first among the boyars. Although he did not sit on the throne, he was still the ruler of the state. Everyone understood this well - the boyars, the nobles, and the small townspeople.
And Boris went to the Novodevichy Convent. He wanted them to beg him to become king. He knew that the time had come for him to become sovereign. Waited for it!
And so they convened the Zemsky Sobor (meeting). Everyone spoke with praise about Godunov, and if so, he was elected king. They were sent to inform Boris about this, but Godunov refused the throne.
A crowd of people flocked to Novodevichy to ask Boris to accept the kingdom. Patriarch Job himself, the head of the Russian Church, came to beg Godunov. The crowd knelt down. Finally Boris agreed.
At first the king was merciful. He even reduced taxes. This is just a handout to the people! It’s like a scorched field - a bucket of water.
And then troubles arose. From 1601, crop failures struck. Moscow suffered the worst of all with its trade and craft people. Bread prices have risen. The townspeople began to die of hunger. And it wasn’t easier for the peasants: they ate quinoa and bark. All the grain is in the bins of the nobles and boyars, but among the peasants it is empty.
The “great famine” lasted three years. Unrest began to boil among the people. The peasants went to war against the landowners. The noble estates were on fire. Then the tsar sent punitive detachments to Vladimir, Medyn, Kolomna and Rzhev. Lo and behold, in Moscow itself “the lower classes were indignant.”
Further - worse. Godunov rushed to pacify the small people - the boyars began to stir. The king began to see conspiracies everywhere. He began to find out from the boyar slaves whether their masters were planning any evil. Beatings, torture, and executions began.
Everyone was dissatisfied with Boris, and then something new happened: a rumor spread that Tsarevich Dmitry was alive and was preparing to drive Godunov from the throne, and in Uglich, it was not the prince who was killed, but someone else.
FIRST FALSE DMITRY
The impostor villain was ordered to be caught and immediately brought to the king.
Who is he? Where did it come from?
The former monk Grishka Otrepiev called himself Tsarevich Dmitry. He was “good at reading and writing,” and at one time Patriarch Job took him to his place for “book writing.” Sometimes the patriarch brought Otrepyev to the Tsar’s palace. Grishka kept a keen eye on everything there, listened, “knocked it out,” and entered into conversations with the boyars. Once, having drunk wine, he began to boast to the monks that he would soon be king in Moscow. They wanted to seize Otrepyev for such speeches. But good people helped to escape.
A year later he appeared in the Polish-Lithuanian state as Tsarevich Dmitry. For some time he lived with Prince Adam Vishnevetsky, who well understood how beneficial it was for the Poles to support False Dmitry. Vishnevetsky knew about Godunov’s troubles with the boyars and about the peasant wars. “It’s about time,” I thought Polish prince, — overthrow Boris, and install his own man as Tsar in Moscow.”
That is why Vishnevetsky took the impostor to the capital of the Polish-Lithuanian state - to Krakow.
On the way, they stopped in Sambir with the governor Yuri Mnishek. False Dmitry was received with honor. A dinner was arranged in honor of the “prince”. It was here that he took a liking to Marina, the beautiful daughter of the governor.
“It’s a pity, isn’t it! - Grishka grinned. - Probably not from your own pocket. Not made by ourselves.”
When the impostor returned to Sambir, an agreement was drawn up between False Dmitry and Mnishek: the “prince” would become the Russian Tsar - he would receive Marina as a wife and give her Pskov and Novgorod, while the governor himself would receive the land of Smolensk and part of Seversk.
The gathering of troops began. Hunters came to the impostor to profit from robbery and violence, ready to sell their saber to the highest bidder.
In October, the army of False Dmitry set out.
One after another, Russian cities surrendered to the “prince” without a fight. The peasants and small service people believed in the “good” tsar and waited for Dmitry: he would deliver them from serfdom, and he would punish the villainous boyars. The governors, fearing the wrath of the people, opened the city gates in front of Otrepiev and greeted him with bread and salt.
And many boyars went over to the side of the impostor, even though they knew that the real prince had been killed. After all, the main thing for them was to throw off Godunov. Nobody knew about the secret deal between False Dmitry and Sigismund.
In April 1605, Boris died unexpectedly. His son Fedor became king. He sent a boyar governor against the impostor. But they handed over the army to the “legal heir.”
In Moscow, the boyar nobility staged a coup: Tsar Fedor and his mother were killed, and Patriarch Job, who stood for Godunov, was also overthrown.
With a magnificent retinue, surrounded by Polish military leaders, False Dmitry entered Moscow.
The people waited in vain for good changes in their lives. The “good king” did not deliver from serfdom, did not issue fair decrees. But he himself lived happily in Moscow. Music thundered in his palace day and night. At the feasts, wine flowed like a river. Countless numbers of Poles came to Moscow. They mocked Russian customs, and if something went wrong, they snatched the saber.
This outraged the townspeople. They began to look askance at the offenders. With “bald heads” (as Muscovites called the Poles - it was customary for the gentry to shave their heads), fights broke out every now and then in the streets.
At dawn on May 17, 1606, an alarm sound floated over Moscow. The impostor, who had just celebrated his wedding with Marina Mnishek, decided that the bells were ringing in his honor. But the ringing was alarming...
Having scattered the guards, the crowd rushed into the palace shouting: “Beat him! Chop him!” Grishka jumped out the window and was found. Here the impostor came to an end.
False Dmitry's body was burned, and the ashes were put into a cannon and shot in the direction from which he came.
CONVERSATION WITH THE KING
It was a rainy day in Krakow. The clouds hung so low that it seemed as if the tall spiers of the cathedrals would touch them at any moment.
But that was not why King Sigismund was gloomy. He listened to the report of Prince Adam Vishnevetsky, who returned from Moscow.
“Your Majesty,” Vishnevetsky continued after a short pause, “not only the impostor was killed that day.”
- Who else?
— More than four hundred Poles.
- So much?
- All of Moscow has risen, Your Majesty.
- How did you escape?
— Vasily Shuisky helped.
- Russian Tsar?
“On that day he was not yet king.
“He became one in two days.”
- He was not elected. Shuisky's supporters shouted his name to the crowd in the square from Lobnoye Mesto. That's all.
“Curious,” Sigismund smiled sadly. - Further?
“Shuisky helped not only me, but also Yuri Mnishek and Marina escape.
“It’s good that he didn’t help the impostor escape,” the king allowed himself to joke.
Prince Adam Vishnevetsky laughed forcedly:
“The most interesting thing, your Majesty: before Vasily Shuisky had time to take the throne, people began to say that “Tsar Dmitry Ivanovich is alive,” and on many boyar gates it was written at night that “Tsar Dmitry orders the houses of traitors to be plundered.” Vasily Shuisky suppressed the uprising with great difficulty.
“Yes...” the king said after a pause. — In Rus', dead kings are loved more than living ones.
— A special case, Your Majesty. Tsarevich Dmitry is the victim. In Rus' they feel sorry for the victims.
“They didn’t really feel sorry for the impostor.”
“Your Majesty, he behaved too stupidly.”
Sigismund was not very sad - he had already thought more than once about replacing Otrepiev with a new False Dmitry.
MOSCOW IS UNDER SIEGE
In the summer of 1608, the army of False Dmitry II approached Moscow. The capital was well fortified. The Kremlin and Kitai-Gorod (the commercial part of the center, which was adjacent to the Kremlin on the eastern side) were surrounded by powerful stone walls with loopholes. The second white stone wall covered the Bolshoi Posad in a semicircle (this part of Moscow began to be called the White City). And the settlements that were located in the immediate vicinity of Moscow were protected by a third, wooden wall “three good fathoms” thick.
Moscow also had its own Cannon Yard, which worked “with great efficiency.” Russian craftsmen supplied the army with mortars, arquebuses and shotguns. Muscovites made their own gunpowder (potion). The sovereign's courtyard, where gunpowder was made, was located in the Assumption ravine.
The Russians also came up with mobile fortresses on sleighs or wheels for fighting outside the city - “walk-in-towns”. These structures were protected by thick cobblestone shields and had holes for firing from self-propelled guns. Each “walk-city” housed up to ten riflemen.
Seeing that it was impossible to take Moscow “like a bird with your hand,” the new impostor tried to cut off the capital from other cities in order to complicate the supply of food to it. False Dmitry II set up his camp on the Volokolamsk road near the steep bank of the Moscow River in the village of Tushino (that’s why he was nicknamed the Tushino thief).
The main Russian army stood on the Khodynka River and occupied positions from the village of Khoroshevo to the city walls.
On the night of June 25, the Poles tried to attack the Russian camp and initially pushed back the Muscovites. But in the morning, a large detachment under the command of Shuisky himself drove the enemy beyond the Khimka River.
Several months have passed. A whole city grew up in Tushino. The army of the impostor was replenished all the time. Foreign merchants brought their goods here. The camp was also sufficiently supplied due to robberies. The feasts thundered one after another.
And in Moscow at that time “it was vague, and sorrowful, and cramped.” It became impossible for Vasily Shuisky to compete with the Tushinsky thief. The Tsar retreated to the Presnya River, and in December he left for Moscow.
But the real defenders of Moscow held firm, “the thieves fought with the Poles, and with Lithuania, and with the Russians, not sparing their bellies,” although in everything “they endured need and hunger during the siege.” These warriors understood that now main enemy- foreign invaders.
The besieged Trinity-Sergius Monastery also fought back strongly. Thirty thousand Poles surrounded him, dug in, and tried to take him by storm. They couldn't do anything. Like stones, “monastic brethren, elders, servants and a few military men, but in total three thousand in number,” grew into the wall. No way to throw them out of there. At the end of May 1609, the enemy attempted last try took the monastery by storm, but was repulsed “with great damage.”
At the same time, the Tushino army “rose” against Moscow. Warriors with “walking cities” came out to meet her. Troops clashed on the Khodynka River. At first, the Tushins began to overcome them and broke through the “walk-towns”. But fresh forces arrived, they hit the foreign cavalry from both sides, overturned it and “trampled” it all the way to Khodynka. The enemy infantry was also pretty battered. Cannons abandoned by the enemy fell into the hands of Moscow soldiers.
The siege of Moscow continued. But the defenders did not want to hear about the surrender of the capital.
SIGISMUND III IS AT WAR
Meanwhile, already in the autumn of 1608, both in the northern lands of the Russians, and in the Volga region, and in the Vladimir region, people rose up against False Dmitry II and the Poles.
The king became worried in Krakow and again summoned Prince Adam Vishnewiecki.
“The mob has risen in Vologda and Ustyug,” Vishnevetsky reported, “in Yuryev and Balakhna.”
Sigismund looked coldly, prickly.
“We left Kostroma...” the prince continued.
The king could not stand it:
- And Moscow?! - Sigismund glared at the prince. “The army has been stuck in Tushino for a year and a half. Why was Moscow not taken?
— Moscow, Your Majesty, is an excellently protected city. In Europe, as the Russians say, you have to look for them during the day. Besides...
“You need to burn with fire, burn out,” interrupted the king.
- Besides, our Tushino protege...
- What? - the king became wary.
“I’m afraid he won’t live up to expectations, Your Majesty.”
— Do Russians no longer believe in the “true Tsar”?
“They don’t believe in the impostor, Your Majesty.” There is confusion in his army. If the Russians come to him to fight against Shuisky, he sends them to plunder. This is not to everyone's taste, Your Majesty. But our nobles overdid it most of all. Nowadays in Rus' they are not called anything other than “murderers” or “villains”.
Sigismund thought, looking at his diamond ring.
“Do you mean to say that they can’t do it without the royal army?”
- Yes, Your Majesty, but...
Vishnevetsky did not finish. The king waited patiently.
-... it will be a war between two states.
- And you think we can’t do this?
The prince was thinking about what to say, but the king answered himself:
— The war has been going on for a long time. This is clear even to the mob in Ustyug.
In the summer of 1609, Sigismund III declared war on the Russian state. At the end of September, the royal army besieged Smolensk. However, this city turned out to be a tough nut to crack. The Poles were stuck here for a long time. Only after a twenty-month siege did they break through the walls of Smolensk.
Sigismund demanded that the “Tushino” Poles join his army and abandon the impostor. The Tushinsky thief, seeing that his affairs were bad, changed into a peasant dress “and secretly in a dung sleigh” fled to Kaluga. His camp disintegrated.
After the flight of False Dmitry II, a group of Tushino boyars sent ambassadors to Sigismund near Smolensk - “to ask Prince Vladislav to become king of Moscow.” Sigismund, in order to make the path to the Russian throne easier for his son, sent an army to Moscow under the command of one of the hetmans. The Moscow army was defeated. And Tsar Vasily, who was left without an army, was overthrown by his own subjects.
BETRAYAL
A double threat hangs over Moscow. “The Poles and Lithuania have arrived” - they were already standing in the Khoroshevsky meadows near the Moscow River. And again False Dmitry II appeared near the capital, in the village of Kolomenskoye. Both the Poles and the thief wanted to take Moscow for themselves.
And among the Russian boyars, turmoil and strife were in full swing. Each one tried to get to the royal throne and push aside his rival. Death stared the Russian state in the eye, and they only cared about their own well-being.
Boyar Sheremetev said:
“It is not from King Sigismund that we are threatened with ruin.” The greatest evil comes from the mob, from peasants and slaves.
Boyar Romanov said:
- Low people are starting troubles. Without Polish strength you cannot suppress the unrest.
Boyar Saltykov said:
- You need to ask the prince Vladislav to become king, and then we’ll see.
This is how the boyars decided the fate of the Russian state behind the backs of the people.
Near the Novodevichy Convent, the boyar ambassadors met with the Polish hetman. They said that they were ready to elect the prince as Russian Tsar, but at the same time...
“So that Vladislav does not decide anything important without the advice of the boyars, without the Boyars’ thought,” began Prince Golitsyn.
“So that he does not change the ranks that were in the Moscow state,” added Prince Mstislavsky.
“So that the princely and boyar families are not lowered in honor,” added boyar Sheremetev.
The boyars cared only about their own interests and did not say a word about the people. The hetman promised to fulfill everything.
When the townspeople found out about the boyars’ deception, Moscow became agitated.
“We don’t want Polish masters over us!” - shouted the Kalashnikov Fadey from Arbat.
- Get away, you bald heads! - shouted the dray driver Afonya from Ordynka.
- Beat them with axes, our destroyers! - shouted the knifemaker Grigory from Bronnaya Sloboda.
Fear fell on the boyars - they began to ask foreigners to delay entering Moscow. However, a few days later, at night, the Poles quietly entered the city. The hetman himself settled in the Kremlin, in the mansion of Boris Godunov. He placed his army in Kitai-Gorod, at the gates and walls White City posted guards.
The boyars realized it, but it was too late: they had neither “their will” in the Boyar Duma, nor power.
And for the common people, “there was great violence and insult from the Poles and Lithuania,” they behaved like invaders, “all sorts of goods and edible grub” were taken by force “without money.”
And False Dmitry II sent “vague” letters to the capital, writing that he would come to Moscow to kill “the Poles, boyars and great nobles”, and give freedom to the “low” people. Many people liked these certificates.
MOSCOW IS RISING
And in Moscow it was like before the explosion... But they didn’t roll a barrel of gunpowder to the fire, they drove the people with whips and sabers to swear allegiance to the Polish prince. And what a barrel of gunpowder compared to the anger of the people! Because of his anger, the ground burned under the feet of the invaders. And already in fear they shouted to the Russians: “Submit!”
The Smolensk people responded to Sigismund with cannon fire. The Ryazan governor Prokopiy Lyapunov fought fiercely with the Poles in his region. The Zaraysk governor, Prince Dmitry Pozharsky, crushed them. Patriarch Hermogenes sent out secret letters - he freed the Russian people from their oath to Vladislav.
At such a tense time, False Dmitry II was killed in Kaluga.
Since February 1611, detachments from all sides of the Russian state reached out to Moscow. And they no longer went to fight for the “good king”, but for their native land, for their capital city. Militia came from Murom and Nizhny Novgorod, from Suzdal and Vladimir, from Vologda and Uglich, from Kostroma and Yaroslavl, from Ryazan and Galich.
The Poles were wary: they did not order anyone to carry knives, they took away axes from carpenters, posted guards at the city gates, and searched every cart to see if anyone was bringing weapons into the city. Small firewood was also forbidden to be sold: they were afraid that the people would make cudgels. Patriarch Hermogenes was taken into custody. They demanded that he stop the movement towards Moscow. But he firmly answered that he blesses “everyone to stand against you and die for the Orthodox faith.”
In Moscow, here and there “bloody clashes” broke out between the gentry and the “black” people. And the closer the Russian detachments approached the capital, the more anxious the Poles became. The traitorous boyars gave them the day of the Moscow uprising - March 19.
And the Muscovites, waiting for the militia, armed themselves as best they could. In the courtyards they prepared sleighs with logs in order to block off
the streets with such sleighs - then it will be difficult for the Poles to move around the city and come to each other’s rescue.
On March 18, some militia units came very close to Moscow. In the evening, through the gates of the wall, slightly brightening in the blue twilight, Pozharsky’s detachment entered the White City. The warriors of other Russian governors stood in Zamoskvorechye and at the Yauz Gate.
The Kremlin and Kitai-Gorod were engulfed in silence, broken only by the heavy steps of the guards. Listening to these steps, the Polish military leaders consulted among themselves. It was decided to go out to meet the Russian militia and, until all the detachments arrived, defeat it piece by piece. But these plans were not destined to be fulfilled, because in Moscow itself the people rebelled.
It all started, it seems, with a small problem. In the morning several carts drove through Red Square. On one of them sat a dray driver from Ordynka - Afonya. Afonyushka’s shoulders are like an oblique fathom, Afonyushka’s fists weigh a pound. Afonya rode on his own, didn’t bother anyone, and at that hour the Poles were dragging guns onto the tower. Carrying a cannon is not a cake, who wants to work hard. When the Poles saw Afonyushka, they ran up:
- Get off the cart, I need some help.
- Come on! - the driver waved him off. - You'll get by.
The Poles are not far behind, pulling Afonushka by the hands.
- Get out! - the driver got angry. - I have no time!
The Pole grabbed his saber:
- Oh, dog blood!
Afonyushka didn’t like this, he hit the screamer on the top of his head with his fist - he fell dead.
The Poles rushed to Mount Athos. And he had a spare shaft on his cart. How Afonyushka went over enemy heads with it! Here, the other drivers did not make a mistake, they jumped off the carts - and with clubs to the rescue of their comrade. And the Germans, Sigismundov’s mercenaries, decided that an uprising had begun. They rushed at the common people, at the merchants and at the artisans. They beat everyone indiscriminately “in the square, in the ranks, and in the streets.” A bloody slaughter rose all around. The men grabbed axes, the Germans grabbed muskets. The crowd roared and volleys rang out. And then the alarm sound shook all of Moscow.
In the White City, the streets were filled with logs. Muscovites fired from self-propelled guns from roofs, from windows, through fences.
The battle broke out on Nikitskaya Street and broke out on Sretenka.
The musketeers wanted to take the Cannon Yard, but the gunners, among whom was Prince Pozharsky, met them with targeted fire.
The Poles thought to break through at the Yauza Gate, but even there the Russian army held a strong defense. They did not manage to get through Zamoskvorechye, and at the Tver Gate, where there were streltsy settlements, the streltsy struck at the invaders.
Things got really bad for the Poles. And then one of the nobles shouted:
- Burn the houses!
They began to set houses on fire with burning tar. The fire ran through the wooden buildings.
Because of the smoke and flames, the Russians had to abandon their ambushes.
At night, the invaders decided to burn out the entire White City and Skorodom.
Two hours before dawn the arsonists began their crime. Set on fire from several sides, the city burst into flames.
The entire next day, Prince Dmitry Pozharsky, taking refuge in a small prison, repelled the attacks of the Poles. But by evening, “exhausted from great wounds,” the prince fell to the ground. This is how the brave warrior would have died if reliable friends had not taken him out of the fire and managed to deliver him to the Trinity-Sergius Monastery.
King Sigismund sent another army under the command of Colonel Strus to help his garrison. Through the burned, silent Moscow, Strus led the soldiers straight to the Kremlin.
Muscovites left the capital. They left to meet the militia detachments.
INVADERS IN THE RING
A few more days passed. The Poles, who were on patrol at the bell tower of Ivan the Great, suddenly noticed how Russian troops were approaching the city walls in a wide strip - as if a river was gushing from somewhere.
They reported to the Polish governor Gonsevsky. Having put on a boyar’s fur coat, he himself climbed to the upper platform of the bell tower. I looked for a long time.
“Here come the Russians. They’re moving!..” Gonsevsky shivered chillily and pulled his fur coat deeper around him. “Oh, Virgin Mary, what do they want here, in empty Moscow, where only the wind whistles among the black brands?”
The Pole can’t understand that, he can’t comprehend it.
Until all the detachments arrived, Gonsevsky ordered Strus, at the head of seven hundred horsemen, to go out to meet the Russians and engage them in battle.
Seeing the cavalry, the Russians began to scatter on both sides of the road. “Pitiful cowards,” thought the Polish commander and already felt the intoxicating sweetness of victory.
But when the horsemen approached, there was no running crowd in front of them, and suddenly some structures on sleighs appeared on the road, looking either like a wall or like log houses. Strus had never seen anything like this.
- What is this? - he asked the experienced captain with a red mustache, who had already sniffed gunpowder more than once in battles with the Muscovites.
— The Russian idea is “walk-the-city.” Without guns, they are not easy to take. Best to get around.
At this time, shots rang out from the wooden structures.
- Bypass! - Strus commanded.
But the cavalry in several rows was surrounded by “walking cities”. Having lost up to a hundred killed, the Poles barely escaped the encirclement and galloped back.
The next day, the Ryazan governor Prokopiy Lyapunov approached Moscow, and atamans Trubetskoy and Zarutsky also joined him with the Cossacks. They stood behind the Simonov Monastery. When Gonsevsky tried to drive them away, the militia so “bravely broke” into the ranks of the invaders and gave them such hand-to-hand combat that the Poles fled and came to their senses only in Kitai-Gorod.
After this, Russian troops approached the White City without obstacles and positioned themselves along its walls.
And at the Yauzsky Gate, and at the Pokrovsky Gate, and at the Tver Gate - militias appeared everywhere. The city was surrounded.
This is how it happened: the Muscovites built walls, tried to build them as strong as possible, and now they had to take this stronghold themselves.
Well, that wasn’t the problem. The militias learned how to fight, and they don’t lack courage.
But there was no unity and agreement in the ranks of the militias. Discord and turmoil arose among the governors.
The Poles took advantage of the infighting. Gonsevsky ordered a forged letter signed by Lyapunov to be planted in the Cossack camps. That letter called upon, after the capture of Moscow, to “beat and drown the Cossacks without mercy.” In July 1611, the Cossacks called Lyapunov to their “circle”, where he was killed.
After the death of Lyapunov, a split occurred in the militia. Detachments of nobles, peasants and townspeople left from near Moscow. All this undermined the forces of the militia.
However, although the militia could not take Moscow, it tied the hands of the invaders: the capital was still encircled.
In September, King Sigismund III sent Hetman Jan Khotkevich to help his garrison.
He tried several times to drive the Cossacks away from Moscow, but nothing came of it. The hetman turned back to Poland, and part of the garrison went with him, along with Gonsevsky.
Strus was appointed head of the army remaining in the Kremlin.
MININA AND POZHARSKY'S MILITARY
Autumn, autumn... A leaf flew from the trees. The sky became cloudy.
It was not because of the clouds that everything around darkened, but because of black sadness, from sad news. Smolensk fell after a long siege. The Swedes captured Novgorod. Another “thief,” Sidorka, appeared in Pskov and called himself Tsarevich Dmitry. The Moscow region militia was disintegrating. The Crimean Tatars devastated the lands along the southern borders. It's bad, bad in Rus'!
In September in Nizhny Novgorod at the sound of the cathedral bell, people flocked to the square. It was a weekday, and people looked at each other with alarm: why had everyone been called - for better or for worse? But it was not for the message that the Nizhny Novgorod residents were gathered, but a letter from the Trinity-Sergius Monastery was read to them. The letter called for saving the Fatherland “from mortal destruction”, “to all be united and stand together” against foreign invaders and traitors. The letter hurried: “Let the service people hurry to Moscow without any hesitation.”
The crowd began to roar and then died down at once: the zemstvo elder, the meat merchant Kuzma Minin, took the floor. Minin's people respected him; he was a reasonable man and had a clear conscience.
“Good people,” Kuzma began, “you yourself know about the great devastation of the Russian land.” The villains did not spare either the elderly or infants. If we really want to save the Moscow state, we will not spare anything: we will sell yards and property, we will recruit military men and we will beat with our foreheads the one who would stand up for Rus' and be our leader.
Nizhny Novgorod residents began to gather in their houses and on the streets, judging and deciding what to do. Minin appeared at gatherings, talked to people, and encouraged them. He was the first to set an example: he gave all his money to create an army.
Here other townspeople followed suit. Others gave their last just so as not to remain on the sidelines.
But, before calling the military people, it was necessary to choose a governor. Minin said that there is no better governor than Prince Dmitry Mikhailovich Pozharsky. Pozharsky had neither excessive pride nor arrogance; he knew how to get along with people and did not boast of his merits to anyone. He was a skilled governor, a reliable and honest man - only such a one could render great service to the Fatherland. Prince Pozharsky happily responded to Minin’s call. Without delay they began to recruit troops.
Many Russian cities sent their money, weapons and various supplies to Nizhny; military men from everywhere flocked to Minin and Pozharsky to join the militia. In December 1611, an all-Russian government, the “Council of the Whole Land,” was created in Nizhny Novgorod.
The Poles in Moscow became worried. At the beginning of February, they ordered the boyars, who were at the same time with them, to “press” Patriarch Hermogenes so that he would stop the Nizhny Novgorod army with his word. But Hermogenes was firm and “unyielding to temptation.” It was not possible to intimidate or cajole him. The old man threw the following words into the boyars’ faces: “Blessed be those who go to cleanse the Moscow state, and you, damned Moscow traitors, be damned!”
In the first militia, where most of the Cossacks and former “Tushins” now remained, discord began again. Those who called for serving the new impostor prevailed.
To prevent the second militia, Ataman Zarutsky tried to capture Yaroslavl in March: many warriors were coming from the northern suburbs and districts to Minin. But this idea failed for the Cossack chieftain. Prince Pozharsky was ahead of him and brought the militia to Yaroslavl in time.
Here, on the Volga, the prince continued to gather his army for four months and prepared for the campaign against Moscow.
King Sigismund again sent reinforcements to the rescue of the garrison entrenched in the Kremlin. Having learned about this, Pozharsky immediately moved the militia to the capital.
Already being not far from Moscow, in the Trinity-Sergius Monastery, the prince sent envoys to the Cossack camps and ordered them to say that the warriors had no grudge against the Cossacks and were not going to fight them.
“Let the Cossacks understand,” he admonished his messengers, “there is no need for us to shed blood among ourselves in vain.” We now have one enemy - invaders.
However, as soon as the first detachments of the new militia approached Moscow, Ataman Zarutsky fled from the camps. Prince Trubetskoy remained.
On August 20, Pozharsky set up his camp at the Arbat Gate, because the main threat (Khotkevich’s army) was expected from the Smolensk road. To prevent Strus from leaving the Kremlin and connecting with Khotkevich, Pozharsky placed several detachments along the wall of the White City - from the Petrovsky Gate to the Nikitsky and Chertolsky Gates (now Kropotkinsky). Cossacks set up camps in Zamoskvorechye. Pozharsky sent them five hundred horsemen as reinforcements.
THREE-DAY BATTLE
Oh, and what a beautiful army the hetman brought to the walls of the Russian capital! There's a lot to see here. Look at the elegant clothes of the Polish gentry and the Lithuanian nobles, look at the frisky horses and expensive harnesses, look at the formidable weapons, look at the battle scars of the German and Hungarian mercenaries! And the guns, smelling of gunpowder! And the timpani brighter than the sun brilliant!
And Jan Karl Khotkevich himself was a famous commander; I have beaten such strong warriors as the Swedes more than once. “And the Russian militias have nothing to do with the Swedes!” - thought Khotkevich. And his other commanders thought the same. Pan Budilo wrote to Pozharsky: “You better, Pozharsky, let your people go to the plows.” It’s true that the Russian warriors were inferior in appearance and training to the Poles. And their number was smaller: the Poles had twelve thousand, the Russians about ten thousand.
On the morning of August 22, having crossed the Moscow River, Khotkevich led his army on an offensive to the Chertol Gate.
“Forward, eagles!.. Forward!..” Hetman Khotkevich rejoiced. - Rewards and glory await you!
Here is the Chertol Gate. I wish I could burst into them, fly in with a furious wind!
No such luck! The Russians dismounted, stood near the fortified walls, and prepared for hand-to-hand combat.
Even before the battle, Pozharsky made a short speech. He did not promise the warriors either an easy victory, or rich booty, or honorary titles.
“The Russian Land,” said the prince, “expects a just cause from us.” Let us stand firmly near Moscow and fight to the death.
The battle lasted seven hours. And the guns fired, and the sabers sparkled, and the warriors threw themselves at each other “with knives.” The militia had a hard time. The Poles had more strength. Meanwhile, Trubetskoy’s Cossacks watched the battle from the side (they stood nearby - near the Crimean courtyard) and did not take part. They did not let go of those horse hundreds that Pozharsky gave them.
“It’s time, Prince, to go to the rescue,” the militia said to Trubetskoy.
- It will be in time.
Among the horsemen sent was Grigory, a knifemaker from Bronnaya Sloboda. He tried to conscience of the Cossacks: there, they say, blood is being shed, and you are sitting here.
It's a shame for Gregory. Well, how rich is he! They bought him a horse from the money that Minin collected, and Grigory worked the saber himself - that’s why he’s a knifemaker. Grigory persuaded his comrades, and they galloped to help of their own free will, without Trubetskoy’s permission.
- Stop! - the Cossacks shouted after them. But they didn’t hold back - they also rushed into battle.
Khotkevich retreated with losses. He left a thousand dead Poles and mercenaries on the battlefield. Torn banners lay in the dust. Only the abandoned kettledrums still shone brightly.
Strus tried to strike from the Kremlin at the rear of the militia. But this foray was not successful. The archers stationed in the White City drove the Poles back.
At night, the hetman ordered one of the detachments to break into the Kremlin and deliver supplies to the besieged garrison. The detachment managed to pass through Zamoskvorechye and connect with the Kremlin garrison, but the Russians captured the food train.
On August 23, Khotkevich with his entire camp moved to the Donskoy Monastery in order to again break through Zamoskvorechye to the Kremlin. The hetman was aware of the troubles between the Cossacks and the militia, and he believed that Trubetskoy would not provide strong resistance.
But Khotkevich miscalculated. Prince Pozharsky, having learned about everything from the spies, also moved his troops to defend Zamoskvorechye. Now he stood on Ostozhenka, from where he could ford the Moscow River at any moment. The advanced detachments were transferred to the right bank: foot archers scattered at the ditch along the Zemlyanoy Val with cannons. The Cossacks who were with Pozharsky stood in the prison where Pyatnitskaya and Ordynka meet - at the Klimentovskaya Church. This fort guarded the road leading from
Serpukhov Gate to the Floating Bridge, which connected Zamoskvorechye with Kitay-Gorod.
On August 24, the hetman, putting all his forces into battle, occupied the fortifications of Zemlyanoy Val and brought four hundred carts into the city for those besieged in the Kremlin. But the convoy reached only Ordynka: the attacks of Russian warriors did not allow it to advance further. The Hungarian mercenaries still managed to capture the Klimentovsky fort, and this was the end of the offensive of Khotkevich’s troops.
The Cossacks holding the fort, although they retreated, were not far away. They lay down, fired, and watched as the Poles brought carts into the prison. It so happened that Sevastyan, a weaver with Kadasha, found himself among the Cossacks. He tells them:
“It would be a good time to return the prison.” The hour is not certain, the Poles will still bring up the army, but it will be bad for you and me.
- Let's go back. Lie down. Why are you so eager?
“My house isn’t far from here, I can’t wait.”
- Which house? Everything is burned out.
“The native place remains, but we’ll build a new hut,” Sevastyan answers. - We need to drive out the Poles.
- And our house is everywhere. Where we spend the night, there is home.
— It’s clear: people are free. Today you are here, and the next there is no trace of you. But you still say it wrong. Your home is the Russian land. “And he repeated: “We need to drive out the Poles.”
- Lie down until you are told to get up.
- What to expect? We gave up the prison ourselves, we’ll take it back ourselves, and we’ll also grab the convoy.
Sevastyan finally raised the Cossacks. They rushed to attack, fought for a long time with both the Hungarian infantry and the Polish cavalry, but still recaptured the Klimentovsky fort. The enemy retreated. He left seven hundred men on the battlefield alone with infantry. All supply carts were also abandoned.
Meanwhile, Prince Pozharsky transferred his main forces to the right bank of the Moscow River. And the battle broke out in Zamoskvorechye for many hours. Successes were variable. In addition, Trubetskoy’s Cossacks either entered into battle or left.
It was already getting dark when Minin galloped into Pozharsky’s camp and asked to give him people “to attack the Poles and Lithuania.”
“Take whoever you want, Kuzma,” the prince answered his faithful comrade-in-arms.
Having taken three cavalry hundreds of nobles, Minin crossed the river and attacked from the flank the enemy companies that were near the Crimean courtyard.
This blow took the Poles by surprise. They ran, crushed their own, and caused confusion. Then Pozharsky’s militia attacked the hetman’s camp, the cavalry crashed, and the infantry went “in a vice” (that is, together). Seeing this, Trubetskoy’s Cossacks also took up arms as one. Khotkevich's army rolled back.
In three days, Pozharsky completely defeated the famous Khotkevich. Only four hundred horsemen remained with the hetman from the entire army.
COMPLETION
All that remained now was to deal with those Poles who had settled in Kitai-Gorod and the Kremlin.
Pozharsky ordered direct fire from mortars at the besieged. “Stone and fiery cannonballs” flew through the walls. There were cannons even at the Kremlin itself from the Moscow River.
The Poles were without food and endured great “crowding” in everything: the Russians blocked all their exits. To avoid unnecessary bloodshed, Prince Pozharsky invited the enemy garrison to surrender.
“We know,” he wrote, “that you, sitting under siege, are suffering terrible hunger and great need... Now you yourself have seen how the hetman came and with what dishonor and fear he left you, and then not all of our troops have arrived... Don't expect the hetman. Come and visit us without delay. Your heads and lives will be spared. I will take this to my soul and ask all military men. Those of you who wish to return to their land will be allowed in without any clue... If any of you are unable to walk due to hunger, and they have nothing to travel with, then when you leave the fortress, we will send them carts.”
The Poles sent an insulting response to the prince’s friendly letter. They believed that the militia warriors, cut off “from the plow,” could not really fight, and advised Pozharsky to disband the army: “Let the serf continue to cultivate the land, let the priest know the church, let the Kuzmas go about their trade.”
- Russian people, the hour of the last battle of Moscow has come. Let the Poles not believe in our military skills, that’s their business. The walls of Kitai-Gorod are strong, and the fighting spirit of our army is even stronger. Attack!
The trumpets sounded and banners fluttered in the wind. The warriors rushed to the walls of Kitai-Gorod and climbed up the ladders.
Afonushka the driver from Ordynka also ran with everyone. Afonya is healthy: in his hands a sharp saber seems like child's play.
“Throw it away,” his comrades shout to him, “take the saber and take the shaft, it will be of more use!”
The Russians took China Town. Only the Poles remained in the Kremlin. But now they immediately agreed to surrender and only begged for mercy.
On October 26, Pozharsky signed an agreement under which he promised to save the lives of the besieged. The next morning all the Kremlin gates were open.
Russian troops solemnly entered the city. Pozharsky's regiments marched from the direction of Arbat, Trubetskoy's Cossacks - from the Pokrovsky Gate. The warriors moved in “quiet steps” with victorious chants. And all the people were “in great joy and gladness.”
King Sigismund, having learned about everything, directed his army towards Moscow. On the way, he tried to capture Volokolamsk, which, according to the Russians, is like a village in the “great state of Moscow.” But Volokolamsk was beyond the king’s strength. Sigismund lifted the siege “and went home to Poland in disgrace.”
Thus, in intense battles under the walls of Moscow, the fate of all Rus' was decided.
And in 1818, a monument to two glorious sons of the Russian people was erected in Moscow on Red Square. The inscription on it is: “To Prince Pozharsky and citizen Minin, grateful Russia.”
And if you and I happen to be at that monument, we will also say:
- Low bow to you, heroes, from descendants.
Stories for primary schoolchildren about the Motherland, about native land. Stories that instill in children love and respect for their native land. Stories by Ivan Bunin, Evgeny Permyak, Konstantin Paustovsky.
Ivan Bunin. Mowers
We walked along the high road, and they mowed a young birch forest nearby - and sang.
It was a long time ago, it was an infinitely long time ago, because the life that we all lived at that time will not return forever.
They mowed and sang, and the entire birch forest, which had not yet lost its density and freshness, still full of flowers and smells, responded loudly to them.
All around us were fields, the wilderness of central, primordial Russia. It was late afternoon on a June day... The old high road, overgrown with bushes, cut by dead ruts, traces of the ancient life of our fathers and grandfathers, stretched out before us into the endless Russian distance. The sun was leaning to the west, began to set in beautiful light clouds, softening the blue behind the distant hills of the fields and casting great light pillars towards the sunset, where the sky was already golden, as they are painted in church paintings. A flock of sheep was gray in front, an old shepherd with a shepherd sat on the boundary, winding a whip... It seemed that there was no, and there never was, neither time nor its division into centuries, into years in this forgotten - or blessed - country . And they walked and sang among its eternal field silence, simplicity and primitiveness with some kind of epic freedom and selflessness. And the birch forest accepted and picked up their song as freely and freely as they sang.
They were “distant”, from Ryazan. A small artel of them passed through our Oryol places, helping our hayfields and moving to the lower ranks, to earn money during the working season in the steppes, even more fertile than ours. And they were carefree, friendly, as people are on a long and long journey, on vacation from all family and economic ties, they were “eager to work,” unconsciously rejoicing in its beauty and efficiency. They were somehow older and more solid than ours - in custom, in behavior, in language - neat and beautiful clothes, their soft leather shoe covers, white well-tied footwear, clean trousers and shirts with red, red collars and the same gussets.
A week ago they were mowing the forest near us, and I saw, while riding on horseback, how they went to work, having had their afternoon break: they drank spring water from wooden jugs - so long, so sweetly, as only animals and good, healthy Russians drink farm laborers - then they crossed themselves and cheerfully ran to the place with white, shiny, razor-shaped braids on their shoulders, as they ran they entered the line, let the braids all at once, widely, playfully, and walked, walked in a free, even line. And on the way back I saw their dinner. They sat in a fresh clearing near an extinguished fire, using spoons to drag pieces of something pink out of cast iron.
I said:
- Bread and salt, hello.
They answered cordially:
- Good health, you are welcome!
The clearing descended to the ravine, revealing the still bright west behind the green trees. And suddenly, looking closer, I saw with horror that what they were eating were fly agaric mushrooms, terrible with their dope. And they just laughed:
- It’s okay, they’re sweet, pure chicken!
Now they sang: “Forgive me, goodbye, dear friend!”- moved through the birch forest, thoughtlessly depriving it of thick grasses and flowers, and sang without noticing it. And we stood and listened to them, feeling that we would never forget this early evening hour and would never understand, and most importantly, not fully express what the wonderful charm of their song was.
Its charm was in the responses, in the sonority of the birch forest. Its beauty was that it was in no way on its own: it was connected with everything that we and they, these Ryazan mowers, saw and felt. The beauty was in that unconscious, but blood relationship that was between them and us - and between them, us and this grain-bearing field that surrounded us, this field air that they and we breathed since childhood, this late afternoon, these clouds in the already pinkish west, with this snowy, young forest, full of waist-deep honey herbs, countless wild flowers and berries, which they constantly picked and ate, and this big road, its spaciousness and reserved distance. The beauty was that we were all children of our homeland and were all together and we all felt good, calm and loving without a clear understanding of our feelings, because we don’t need them, we shouldn’t understand them when they exist. And there was also a charm (already completely unrecognized by us then) that this homeland, this common home of ours was Russia, and that only her soul could sing the way the mowers sang in this birch forest responding to their every breath.
The beauty was that it was as if there was no singing at all, but just sighs, the rise of a young, healthy, melodious chest. One breast sang, as songs were once sung only in Russia and with that spontaneity, with that incomparable lightness, naturalness, which was characteristic of the song only to the Russian. It was felt that the man was so fresh, strong, so naive in ignorance of his strengths and talents and so full of song that he only needed to sigh lightly for the whole forest to respond to that kind and affectionate, and sometimes daring and powerful sonority with which these sighs filled him .
They moved, without the slightest effort, throwing scythes around them, exposing clearings in wide semicircles in front of them, mowing, knocking out the area of stumps and bushes and sighing without the slightest effort, each in their own way, but in general expressing one thing, doing on a whim something unified, completely integral , extraordinarily beautiful. And beautiful with a very special, purely Russian beauty were those feelings that they told with their sighs and half-words along with the responding distance, the depth of the forest.
Of course, they “said goodbye, parted” with their “darling side”, and with their happiness, and with hopes, and with the one with whom this happiness was united:
Forgive me, goodbye, dear friend,
And, darling, oh, goodbye, little side! —
they each sighed differently, with varying degrees of sadness and love, but with the same carefree, hopeless reproach.
Forgive me, goodbye, my dear, unfaithful one,
Has my heart become blacker than dirt for you? —
they spoke, complaining and yearning in different ways, emphasizing the words in different ways, and suddenly they all merged at once in a completely harmonious feeling of almost delight in the face of their death, youthful audacity in the face of fate and some kind of extraordinary, all-forgiving generosity - as if they were shaking their heads and threw it all over the forest:
If you don’t love, aren’t nice, God be with you,
If you find something better, you’ll forget! —
and all over the forest it responded to the friendly strength, freedom and chesty sonority of their voices, froze and again, loudly thundering, picked up:
Oh, if you find something better, you’ll forget,
If you find something worse, you will regret it!
What else was the charm of this song, its inescapable joy despite all its seemingly hopelessness? The fact is that man still did not believe, and could not believe, due to his strength and innocence, in this hopelessness. “Oh, yes, all the paths are closed to me, young man!” - he said, sweetly mourning himself. But those who really have no way or road anywhere do not cry sweetly and do not sing of their sorrows. “Forgive me, goodbye, my dear side!” - the man said - and knew that, after all, there was no real separation for him from her, from his homeland, that, no matter where his fate took him, his native sky would still be above him, and around him - the boundless native Rus', disastrous for him, spoiled, except for its freedom, space and fabulous wealth. “The red sun set behind the dark forests, ah, all the birds fell silent, everyone sat down in their places!” My happiness has ended, he sighed, the dark night with its wilderness surrounds me - and yet I felt: he is so close to this wilderness, alive for him, virgin and filled with magical powers, that everywhere he has shelter, lodging, food. someone’s intercession, someone’s kind care, someone’s voice whispering: “Don’t worry, the morning is wiser than the evening, nothing is impossible for me, sleep well, child!” “And from all sorts of troubles, according to his faith, birds and forest animals, beautiful and wise princesses, and even Baba Yaga herself, who pitied him “because of his youth,” helped him out. There were flying carpets for him, invisible hats, milk rivers flowed, semi-precious treasures were hidden, for all mortal spells there were the keys of ever-living water, he knew prayers and spells, miraculous, again according to his faith, he flew away from prisons, casting himself as a clear falcon , having hit the damp Mother Earth, dense jungles, black swamps, flying sands defended him from dashing neighbors and enemies - and the merciful God forgave him for all the daring whistles, sharp, hot knives...
There was one more thing, I say, in this song - this is what both we and they, these Ryazan men, knew well in the depths of our souls, that we were infinitely happy in those days, now infinitely distant - and irrevocable. For everything has its time - the fairy tale has passed for us too: our ancient intercessors abandoned us, prowling animals fled, prophetic birds scattered, self-assembled tablecloths folded, prayers and spells were desecrated, Mother Cheese-Earth dried up, life-giving springs dried up - and the end came , the limit of God's forgiveness.
Evgeny Permyak. A fairy tale about our native Urals
There is more than enough nonsense in this fairy tale. In forgotten dark times, someone’s idle tongue gave birth to this tale and sent it around the world. Her life was so-so. Malomalskoye. In some places she hid, in some places she lived up to our age and got into my ears.
Don't let this fairy tale go to waste! Somewhere, for someone, maybe it will do. If it takes root, let it live. No - my business is my side. What I bought for is what I sell for.
Listen.
Soon as our land hardened, as the land separated from the seas, it was populated by all sorts of animals and birds, and from the depths of the earth, from the steppes of the Caspian region, a golden Snake snake crawled out. With crystal scales, with a semi-precious tint, a fiery interior, ore bones, copper veining...
He decided to gird the earth with himself. I conceived and crawled from the Caspian midday steppes to the cold midnight seas.
He crawled for more than a thousand miles as if on a string, and then began to wobble.
Apparently it was in the fall. The whole night found him. No way! Like in a cellar. Zarya doesn't even study.
The runner wagged. He turned from the Usa River to the Ob and headed for Yamal. Cold! After all, he came out of hot, hellish places. I went to the left. And he walked several hundred miles and saw the Varangian ridges. Apparently the snake didn't like them. And he decided to fly straight through the ice of the cold seas.
He waved, but no matter how thick the ice is, can it withstand such a colossus? Could not resist. Cracked. Donkey.
Then the Serpent sank to the bottom of the sea. What does he care about the immense thickness! It crawls along the seabed with its belly, and the ridge rises above the sea. This one won't drown. Just cold.
No matter how hot the fiery blood of the Snake-Snake is, no matter how boiling everything around is, the sea is still not a tub of water. You won't heat it up.
The runner began to cool down. From the head. Well, if you get a cold in your head, that’s the end of your body. He began to grow numb, and soon became completely petrified.
The fiery blood in him became oil. Meat - in ores. The ribs are like stones. The vertebrae and ridges became rocks. Scales - with gems. And everything else - everything that exists in the depths of the earth. From salts to diamonds. From gray granite to patterned jaspers and marbles.
Years have passed, centuries have passed. The petrified giant was overgrown with a lush spruce forest, pine expanse, cedar fun, larch beauty.
And now it will never occur to anyone that the mountains were once a living snake-snake.
And the years went by and went by. People settled on the slopes of the mountains. The snake was called the Stone Belt. After all, he girded our land, although not all of it. That’s why they gave him a formal name, a sonorous one - Ural.
I can’t say where this word came from. That's just what everyone calls him now. Although it is a short word, it has absorbed a lot, like Rus'...
Konstantin Paustovsky. Collection of miracles
Everyone, even the most serious person, not to mention, of course, the boys, has his own secret and slightly funny dream. I had the same dream - to definitely get to Borovoe Lake.
From the village where I lived that summer, the lake was only twenty kilometers away. Everyone tried to dissuade me from going - the road was boring, and the lake was like a lake, all around there were only forests, dry swamps and lingonberries. The picture is famous!
- Why are you rushing there, to this lake! - the garden watchman Semyon was angry. -What didn’t you see? What a fussy, grasping people, oh my God! You see, he needs to touch everything with his own hand, look out with his own eye! What will you look for there? One pond. And nothing more!
- Were you there?
- Why did he surrender to me, this lake! I don't have anything else to do, or what? This is where they sit, all my business! - Semyon tapped his brown neck with his fist. - On the hill!
But I still went to the lake. Two village boys, Lyonka and Vanya, tagged along with me.
Before we had time to leave the outskirts, the complete hostility of the characters of Lyonka and Vanya was immediately revealed. Lyonka calculated everything he saw around him into rubles.
“Look,” he told me in his booming voice, “the gander is coming.” How long do you think he can handle?
- How do I know!
“It’s probably worth a hundred rubles,” Lyonka said dreamily and immediately asked: “But how much will this pine tree last?” Two hundred rubles? Or for all three hundred?
- Accountant! - Vanya remarked contemptuously and sniffed. “He’s worth a dime’s worth of brains, but he’s asking prices for everything.” My eyes would not look at him.
After that, Lyonka and Vanya stopped, and I heard a well-known conversation - a harbinger of a fight. It consisted, as is customary, only of questions and exclamations.
- Whose brains are they worth for a dime? My?
- Probably not mine!
- Look!
- See for yourself!
- Don't grab it! The cap was not sewn for you!
- Oh, I wish I could push you in my own way!
- Don’t scare me! Don't poke me in the nose! The fight was short but decisive.
Lyonka picked up his cap, spat and went, offended, back to the village. I began to shame Vanya.
- Of course! - said Vanya, embarrassed. - I fought in the heat of the moment. Everyone is fighting with him, with Lyonka. He's kind of boring! Give him free rein, he puts prices on everything, like in a general store. For every spikelet. And he will certainly clear the entire forest and chop it down for firewood. And I’m afraid more than anything in the world when the forest is being cleared. I'm so afraid of passion!
- Why so?
— Oxygen from forests. The forests will be cut down, the oxygen will become liquid and smelly. And the earth will no longer be able to attract him, to keep him close to him. Where will he fly? — Vanya pointed to the fresh morning sky. - The person will have nothing to breathe. The forester explained it to me.
We climbed the slope and entered an oak copse. Immediately red ants began to eat us. They stuck to my legs and fell from the branches by the collar. Dozens of ant roads, covered with sand, stretched between oaks and junipers. Sometimes such a road passed, as if through a tunnel, under the gnarled roots of an oak tree and rose again to the surface. Ant traffic on these roads was continuous. The ants ran in one direction empty, and returned with goods - white grains, dry beetle legs, dead wasps and a furry caterpillar.
- Bustle! - said Vanya. - Like in Moscow. An old man comes to this forest from Moscow to collect ant eggs. Every year. They take it away in bags. This is the best bird food. And they are good for fishing. You need a tiny little hook!
Behind an oak copse, on the edge of a loose sandy road, stood a lopsided cross with a black tin icon. Red ladybugs with white speckles were crawling along the cross.
A quiet wind blew in my face from the oat fields. The oats rustled, bent, and a gray wave ran over them.
Beyond the oat field we passed through the village of Polkovo. I have long noticed that almost all of the regiment’s peasants differ from the surrounding residents in their tall stature.
- Stately people in Polkovo! - our Zaborievskys said with envy. - Grenadiers! Drummers!
In Polkovo we went to rest in the hut of Vasily Lyalin, a tall, handsome old man with a piebald beard. Gray strands stuck out in disarray in his black shaggy hair.
When we entered Lyalin’s hut, he shouted:
- Keep your heads down! Heads! Everyone is smashing my forehead against the lintel! The people in Polkov are painfully tall, but they are slow-witted - they build huts according to their short stature.
While talking with Lyalin, I finally learned why the regimental peasants were so tall.
- Story! - said Lyalin. - Do you think we went so high in vain? Even the little bug doesn’t live in vain. It also has its purpose.
Vanya laughed.
- Wait until you laugh! - Lyalin remarked sternly. “I’m not yet learned enough to laugh.” You listen. Was there such a foolish tsar in Russia - Emperor Paul? Or wasn't it?
“It was,” said Vanya. - We studied.
- Was and floated away. And he did such a lot of things that we still have hiccups to this day. The gentleman was fierce. The soldier at the parade squinted his eyes in the wrong direction - he now gets excited and begins to thunder: “To Siberia! To hard labor! Three hundred ramrods!” This is what the king was like! Well, what happened was that the grenadier regiment did not please him. He shouts: “March in the indicated direction for a thousand miles!” Let's go! And after a thousand miles, stop for an eternal rest!” And he points in the direction with his finger. Well, the regiment, of course, turned and walked. What are you going to do? We walked and walked for three months and reached this place. The forest all around is impassable. One wild. They stopped and began cutting down huts, crushing clay, laying stoves, and digging wells. They built a village and called it Polkovo, as a sign that a whole regiment built it and lived in it. Then, of course, liberation came, and the soldiers took root in this area, and, almost, everyone stayed here. The area, as you can see, is fertile. There were those soldiers - grenadiers and giants - our ancestors. Our growth comes from them. If you don’t believe it, go to the city, to the museum. They will show you the papers there. Everything is spelled out in them. And just think, if only they could walk two more miles and come out to the river, they would stop there. But no, they didn’t dare disobey the order—they just stopped. People are still surprised. “Why are you guys from the regiment, they say, running into the forest? Didn't you have a place by the river? They say they are scary, big guys, but apparently they don’t have enough guesses in their heads.” Well, you explain to them how it happened, then they agree. “They say you can’t fight against an order! It is a fact!"
Vasily Lyalin volunteered to take us to the forest and show us the path to Borovoe Lake. First we passed through a sandy field overgrown with immortelle and wormwood. Then thickets of young pines ran out to meet us. The pine forest greeted us with silence and coolness after the hot fields. High in the slanting rays of the sun, blue jays fluttered as if on fire. Clear puddles stood on the overgrown road, and clouds floated through these blue puddles. It smelled of strawberries and heated tree stumps. Drops of either dew or yesterday’s rain glistened on the leaves of the hazel tree. Cones fell loudly.
- Great forest! - Lyalin sighed. “The wind will blow, and these pines will hum like bells.”
Then the pines gave way to birches, and water sparkled behind them.
- Borovoe? - I asked.
- No. It’s still a walk and a walk to get to Borovoye. This is Larino Lake. Let's go, look into the water, take a look.
The water in Larino Lake was deep and clear to the very bottom. Only near the shore she shuddered a little - there, from under the moss, a spring flowed into the lake. At the bottom lay several dark large trunks. They sparkled with a weak and dark fire when the sun reached them.
“Black oak,” said Lyalin. — Stained, centuries-old. We pulled one out, but it’s difficult to work with. Breaks saws. But if you make a thing - a rolling pin or, say, a rocker - it will last forever! Heavy wood, sinks in water.
The sun shone in the dark water. Beneath it lay ancient oak trees, as if cast from black steel. And butterflies flew over the water, reflected in it with yellow and purple petals.
Lyalin led us onto a remote road.
“Step straight,” he showed, “until you run into mosslands, a dry swamp.” And along the moss there will be a path all the way to the lake. Just be careful, there are a lot of sticks there.
He said goodbye and left. Vanya and I walked along the forest road. The forest became higher, more mysterious and darker. Streams of golden resin froze on the pine trees.
At first, the ruts that had long ago been overgrown with grass were still visible, but then they disappeared, and the pink heather covered the entire road with a dry, cheerful carpet.
The road led us to a low cliff. Beneath it lay mosshars - thick birch and aspen undergrowth warmed to the roots. The trees grew from deep moss. Small yellow flowers were scattered across the moss here and there, and dry branches with white lichen were scattered around.
A narrow path led through the mshars. She avoided high hummocks.
At the end of the path, the water glowed black and blue—Borovoe Lake.
We walked carefully along the mshars. Pegs, sharp as spears, stuck out from under the moss - the remains of birch and aspen trunks. Lingonberry thickets have begun. One cheek of each berry - the one turned to the south - was completely red, and the other was just beginning to turn pink.
A heavy capercaillie jumped out from behind a hummock and ran into the small forest, breaking dry wood.
We went out to the lake. The grass stood waist-high along its banks. Water splashed in the roots of old trees. A wild duckling jumped out from under the roots and ran across the water with a desperate squeak.
The water in Borovoe was black and clean. Islands of white lilies bloomed on the water and smelled sweetly. The fish struck and the lilies swayed.
- What a blessing! - said Vanya. - Let's live here until our crackers run out.
I agreed.
We stayed at the lake for two days.
We saw sunsets and twilight and a tangle of plants appearing before us in the light of the fire. We heard the cries of wild geese and the sounds of night rain. He walked for a short time, about an hour, and quietly rang across the lake, as if he was stretching thin, cobweb-like, trembling strings between the black sky and water.
That's all I wanted to tell you.
But since then I will not believe anyone that there are boring places on our earth that do not provide any food for the eye, the ear, the imagination, or human thought.
Only in this way, by exploring some piece of our country, can you understand how good it is and how our hearts are attached to its every path, spring, and even to the timid squeaking of a forest bird.